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Painted in oils on canvas. 2005. 450mm x 600mm |
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‘Tough Competitor’ Today, most aviation enthusiasts view the de Havilland biplane airliners of the mid-1930s with nostalgic affection. In their time, they were very successful yet, even when first built, they were already outdated. In America, Douglas, Boeing and Lockheed were producing far more advanced monoplane airliners. In Britain, Airspeed, Avro and Percival were working on monoplane airliner designs. In 1936, Phillips & Powis entered this market with the Peregrine. In both performance and cost it far outclassed the de Havilland Dragon Rapide and compared very favourably with the other British monoplane designs. It is interesting to consider what the fortunes of the various British companies may have been in the civil airliner market, if the expansion of the R.A.F. hadn’t changed the future of all the aircraft concerned. Despite winning provisional orders, the Peregrine had to be abandoned when the demands on the Phillips & Powis factory dramatically increased with the award of an Air Ministry contract for the R.A.F.’s first monoplane trainer – the Magister. In 1938, a second Peregrine was built specially for the RAE at Farnborough for research work. _____________________ |
