De Havilland DH.104 Dove

The de Havilland DH.104 Dove was a British twin-engined short-haul airliner and one of the most successful British civil designs of the postwar years. It came out of the Brabazon Committee report, which called for a short-haul feeder airliner, and was a monoplane successor to the Dragon Rapide; the development team was headed by Ronald Bishop, creator of the Mosquito. The Dove first flew on 25 September 1945 and entered service with Central African Airways in December 1946. A standard aircraft carried eight to eleven passengers, and the cabin could be reconfigured for different seating densities or specialised roles such as aerial survey and air ambulance. The Royal Air Force flew it as the Devon and the Royal Navy as the Sea Devon. Production at Hatfield, then Broughton, totalled 544 aircraft, and the last one was delivered in 1967.