The Airco DH.2 was a single seat biplane pusher airplane that was employed as a fighter during the First World War. It was heavily based on the previous design of Geoffrey De Havilland, the two-seater DH.1 which wasn't as successful as this one.
The DH.2 was the first effective armed British airplane of the conflict and it allowed the British pilots to face the early German Fokker airplanes that gave the Germans the aerial advantage in the late months of 1915. Until the British developed a synchronisation gear, the bulk of fighting the German airplanes was taken by both the Airco DH.2 and F.E.2b.
As the British didn't have by no means a way of firing a machine-gun through a propeller in 1915, and the need of having a single-seat fighter was increasing, the British airplane designer, Geoffrey De Havilland, came out with the idea of converting his previous pusher design, the DH.1 into a single-seater fighter and thus, in July 1915 the first prototype of the DH.2 took-off.
It was armed with a single 0.303 Lewis machine gun which could be positioned in any of the single mountings in the cockpit, even during the flight. However it was found that it was much better to aim moving the aircraft itself, instead of the machine-gun and therefore the machine-gun ended up being fixed to the front. That solution was, illegal at first until Major Lanoe Hawker improved his personnal airplane that much, that it became the standard production model from then on.
Most of them were powered by a 100hp Gnôme Monosoupape rotary engine and later models were powered by a 110hp LeRhône engine. A total of 453 airplanes were manufactured by Airco.
After being successfuly tested at Hendon, it served first with the No.5 Squadron RFC but the first one to be fully equipped with them was the No.24 Squadron RFC and it became progressively the standard British fighter operating from French soil until it equipped seven fighter squadrons. It proved to be a very challenging enemy for the Fokker Eindecker and they played an important role during the Battle of the Somme where the No.24 Squadron alone faced 774 combats and destroyed 44 enemy machines. Even if it was not very liked at first by the pilots, it quickly gained the favour of them and, due to it's initial high accident rate, it gained the nickname of 'the Spinning Incinerator'. However, it proved to be highly maneouvrable even if the rear mounted rotary engine was very prone to stall.
When more modern German airplanes such as the Albatros D.II or the Halberstadt D.II arrived at the front lines, the DH.2 ended up being highly outdated and was retired from the frontline. However some of them served in the Macedonian and Palestinean fronts even if they were outdated. By 1918 it was used as an advanced trainer and by the end of the war there were no surviving airframes.
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