The Airco DH-2 is a British fighter aircraft with a mixed construction from the First World War. The DH-2 was created as the first aircraft designed from scratch as a fighter. Earlier designs were an adaptation of already existing ones for hunting tasks. The origins of Geoffrey de Havilland's design date back to March 1915. The prototype flew on July 1, 1915. The plane was armed with one Lewis rifle. Originally it was mobile, but pilots blocked it very often and used the entire plane to aim, as is the case today. Interestingly, blocking the rifle was forbidden by the RFC command. The beginnings of the service were not very successful. In the early Gnome Monosoupape rotary engines, cylinder breakouts were quite frequent, which in the case of the airframe structure resulted in the destruction of the tail support truss. After this defect was removed, the planes were brought to the front by the 24th RFC Squadron at the end of 1915. The plane was not very well liked, it had poor performance due to a large number of lines putting up quite a lot of aerodynamic drag, it had a tendency to spin, which caused several disasters. Also, the cramped and quite shallow cockpit did not affect the comfort of flying this plane. However, despite these inconveniences, the DH-2 made it possible to break the German air dominance achieved by the Fokker E.III and the use of a synchroniser that allowed it to fire through the propeller circle. The concept of the pusher, which did not require a synchroniser, turned out to be an excellent solution, especially as the DH-2's performance was comparable to that of the "Eindecker". They were most successful during the Battle of the Somme in the summer and early fall of 1916. The Germans only started to create their air squadrons (Jagdstaffeln - Jasta), so 6-8 DH-2 formations from 24 or 32 squadrons allowed them to outnumber the German teams (Kampf Einseitzer Kommando - KEK) of 3-4 planes . The DH-2 pilots fought against such pilots as Max Immelmann, Ernst Udet, and Manfred von Richthofen, who started his great career - pilots of the famous Jasta 2. The advantage of the DH-2 ends with the appearance of newer Albatros D.II fighters on the German side. The death of the British ace Lanoe G. Hawker shot down on November 23, 1916 by Manfred von Richthofen piloting the Albatross D.II can be considered a symbolic date of the end of the pusher era. It was his 11th victory. The DH-2 remained in service until the beginning of 1917, but were successively replaced by newer designs after the Allied development of the synchroniser. Technical data: Maximum speed: 150 km / h, speed of climb: 2.77 m / s, maximum ceiling 4265 m, maximum range: 400 km, armament: fixed - 1 Lewis machine gun 7.7mm.
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