De Havilland Don

The de Havilland DH.93 Don was a British multi-role three-seat training aircraft of the 1930s, built by de Havilland Aircraft to Air Ministry Specification T.6/36. It was a single-engined monoplane of wooden stressed-skin construction, intended to train pilots, radio operators and gunners, with the student pilot and instructor side by side in front and a trainee wireless telegraphy operator and the turret gunner behind them in the cabin. The prototype first flew on 18 June 1937 and went to RAF Martlesham Heath for evaluation, where extra equipment added weight and the dorsal gun turret was removed. The type was judged unsuitable for training, and the original order for 250 aircraft was cut to 50, 20 of them delivered as engineless airframes. The rest served as communications and liaison aircraft, mainly with No. 24 Squadron, until early 1939, and all were grounded as instructional airframes in March 1939.