G-BTOG (s/n 86500) De Havilland DH82a Tiger Moth

By Steve Barratt

The de Havilland DH82a is well-known as the WWII RAF training aircraft in which most RAF and FAA pilots completed their basic flight training.

Lovingly restored by the owner’s group, led by Clive Denney, at Vintage Fabrics of Audley End, Essex and returned to the air in June 2022 in the guise of DE745 (serial number 85675), one of a number of wartime Tiger Moths assigned to the USAAF for use as a communications aircraft. DE745 was flown by 353rd Fighter Group USAAF in summer 1943, where it retained its British camouflage scheme and registration with American insignia replacing the British ones. The Americans also gave DE745 a name –Dorothy. The aircraft has been painted out in this unique scheme, one not seen on a Tiger Moth since WWII. The aircraft is fully fitted out with period equipment, including blind flying hood, Gosport speaking tubes and electric lighting.

In American hands the aircraft survived a number of accidents – on landing at Goxhill on 2 August 1943, while taxying at Halesworth on 30 August 1943, and again on landing at Westleton on 7 September 1943. Much repaired, the aircraft was returned to the RAF in 1944 where it was used in glider pilot training. The aircraft was disposed of by the RAF in 1946 and sold to Airtraining of Fairoaks but was never civilianised and is assumed lost.

The G-BTOG airframe itself is Morris Motors built Tiger Moth (serial 86500) built in 1944 for the RAF and numbered NM192, but it never entered service. The aircraft was sold in September 1946 to the French Air Force in March 1946. In August 1951 the aircraft was given the civilian registration F-BGCJ. The aircraft remained in France where it was eventually ‘scrapped’ by Aero Club de Saintonge et d’Aunis. In 1972 it was exported as a project for potential conversion to look like a Curtiss Jenny for a film (but the film was abandoned). It remained stored in a barn in Thurleigh, Bedfordshire until 1991, when it came to Audley End and was taken on by current owners in 2006 for rebuild to be completed as DE745.

Also, and very unusually, the aircraft has been equipped with a new and unused Gipsy Major 1C engine – one of a small number imported in their original shipping crates from South America in the early 2000s. Exported directly from the UK factory in the late 1940s, the engine had only been run on the manufacturer’s test stand and had not previously been installed in an aircraft. Amazingly the engine fired up first time after installation.

Now Dorothy has flown on her LAA test Permit for the first time in 50 years, powered by a brand new engine manufactured seventy five years ago. Test flying was carried out by Clive Denney at Audley End on June 1, and she now awaits the issue of her full Permit. ■