de Havilland Dragon Rapide
Description
Role	Passenger transport / trainer
Crew	2
Passengers	8
First flight	April 17, 1934
Entered service
Manufacturer	de Havilland
Dimensions
Length	34 ft 6 in	10.5 m
Wingspan	48 ft 0 in	14.6 m
Height	10 ft 3 in	3.1 m
Wing area	340 ft²	31.6 m²
Weights
Empty	3,230 lb	1,460 kg
Loaded	5,500 lb	2,490 kg
Maximum takeoff	lb	kg
Powerplant
Engine	2 × de Havilland Gipsy Six
Power (each)	200 hp	150 kW
Performance
Maximum speed	157 mph @ 1,000 ft	253 km/h @ 300 m
Combat range	573 miles	920 km
Ferry range	km	miles
Service ceiling	16,700 ft	5,090 m
Rate of climb	867 ft/min	260 m/min

The de Havilland DH 89 Dragon Rapide was a successful British short-haul passenger airliner of the 1930s. Designed as a successor to the DH 84 Dragon, it featured the tapered wings and streamlined undercarriage fairings of the four-engined DH 86 Express. Dragon Rapide DH89A (G-AIDL), manufactured in 1946. ... April 17 is the 107th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (108th in leap years). ... This is a list of aviation-related events from 1934: Events January Soviet pilots Fedossenko, Wassenko and Usyskin take the stratosphere-balloon Ossoaviachim I to 22,000 m (72,160 ft). ... de Havilland UK In 1920 Geoffrey de Havilland changed the name of his company Airco, where he had previously been chief designer, to the De Havilland Aircraft Company. ... The de Havilland 86 was developed in 1933 for QANTAS, to inaugurate the Singapore-Brisbane section of the England to Australia air route. ...

In 1936 General Franco was carried in a DH 89 on his escape from Africa to Spain at the start of the Civil War. Francisco Franco Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco y Bahamonde Salgado Pardo de Andrade (December 4, 1892 – November 20, 1975), abbreviated Francisco Franco Bahamonde and sometimes known as Generalísimo Francisco Franco, was dictator of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. ... History of Spain Series Prehistoric Spain Roman Spain Medieval Spain Age of Reconquest Age of Expansion Age of Enlightenment Reaction and Revolution First Spanish Republic The Restoration Second Spanish Republic Spanish Civil War The Dictatorship Modern Spain Topics Economic History Military History Social History The Spanish Civil War (July 1936...

At the start of World War II many Dragon Rapides were impressed by the British armed forces and together with fresh RAF orders served under the designation de Havilland Dominie. As well as passengers duties they were used for radio navigational training. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km (over 11 miles) into the air. ...

731 Rapides were built and they have proved astonishingly durable with many still flying into the 21st century.