Air

Some notes on the TK-4
An exciting small Pre-War Racing Aeroplane

ALLOWING students to build their own concept of racing car or aeroplane must concentrate their minds marvellously and materially increase their enthusiasm for work and study. Consequently, when, many, years ago, I saw that the College of Automobile Engineering at Chelsea was picturing in its advertising a couple of identical-looking Brescia Bugattis, each endowed with racing bodywork, one painted black, the other white, I thought what a good omen this must be for the College students, for I assumed they had worked on this pair of Bugattis and perhaps would be preparing them for racing at Brooklands. However, nothing more was heard of them and I do not think they were ever raced; perhaps David Sewell who looks after the 16-valve side of Bugatti OC interests can tell us what became of them?

In aeronautical circles, students seem to have fared better. At Cranwell the RAF Cadets had a part in the building of ultra-light aeroplanes for the Lympne Competitions of 1924-26 (and Nicholas Comper as their designer), a scheme that spread to the staff and apprentices at Halton and the RAE. Later the de Havilland Technical School at Stag Lane, Edgware, built a number of racing light aeroplanes, designed by Marcus Langley, a lecturer there on aircraft design. The first of these was the TO-I, which looked rather like a poor-man’s DH Moth. A two-seater biplane powered by a Gipsy III engine, Geoffrey de Havilland asked if he could fly it in the 1934 King’s Cup Race, so G-ACTK was rushed through its tests and it finished fifth, averaging 124.24 m.p.h.

The TK-1 was followed by the TK-2, a wooden low-wing monoplane with a high-compression Gipsy Major IC engine developing 147 b.h.p. Registered G-ADNO, a was given an extra fuel tank in the passenger’s seat for the 1935 King’s Cup Race and was flown into sixth place at 165.88 m.p.h. by Capt. H. S. Broad, no less. Using stub exhausts, longer wheel spats, and a modified windscreen, the TK-2 was 6th in the 1936 Wakefield Trophy Race, at 170 m.p.h., and it won the London-Cardiff Race at 189.72 m.p.h. flown by R. J. Waight, who, as I mentioned last month, had flown in his first race, the King’s Cup, that year, with this aeroplane.

However, the racer which really opened my eyes around this time was the TK-4, a tiny single-seater monoplane with retractable wheels, built by those dedicated DH Students, guided by Sqdn. Ldr. Clapp and E. W. Dodds, around a Gipsy Major II engine driving a DH v.p. propeller. The TK-4 was bided in high-gloss red and I looked at it with awe, as I had at the Camper Swifts and earlier tiny racing single-seaters, until the Percival Mew Gull overshadowed them all. The TK-4 had a wing-span of 19 8″, weighed 931 lb. empty and was designed to do well over 200 m.p.h. A real little racer!

It was handicapped at 235 m.p.h. in the 1937 King’s Cup Race. Waight brought it home ninth, at 230.5 m.p.h. It looked as if G-AETK could easily capture the 100 km. closed-circuit class speed record but while on a practice run in October 1937 it crashed when flying at a very low altitude at Hatfield and DH’s Chief Test Pilot, Bob Waeight, lost his life.

The TK-2 continued to be successful. It was seventh in the 1937 Wakefield Cup Race, flown by Geoffrey de Havilland (171.5 m.p.h.) and he also flew it in the 1938 King’s Cup contest. This game little aeroplane was then used by de Havilland’s for communication work during the war, but it did some more racing after peace had returned, tatting second place in the 1947 Olley Challenge Trophy Race (Bruce Campbell up) at 179 m.p.h. It was broken up that December.

I thought these notes might be appropriate on the eve of the DH 100 celebrations — see below. W.B.

DH 100