After the war some DH4's were rebuilt as DH4A's by replacing the rear gunners
place with a two-seat compartment, cloth covered with sliding windows. To
compensate the centre of gravity change, the top wing was moved back to give
a 90 degree wing angle.
Instone Airlines was one of the first airlines, flying between London and
Paris with DH4A's until larger planes went into service. Instone were originally
a shipping line; their airline merged with Handley-Page and some other
small airlines to become Imperial Airlines. One of their DH4A's, G-EAMU,
was prepared
for the Kings Cup Air Race in 1922, and won it.
My model is converted from the Airfix DH4, which is a good model, basically
correct, except for the undercarriage which is too short, and the wing surfaces
that could have been better. If you think there is a lot of rigging on a
DH2, then a DH4 is actually worse. The rigging is mostly stainless steel,
except for the long contol lines which sagged under their own weight, I used
strue instead. Painting and lettering are from lots of different sources,
and homemade. The propellor is hand-carved and I'm rather proud of the brass
sheathing, which came from a chocolate wrapper. It took about a year to build.
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