Airco D.H.2: First World War Aircraft

The Airco D.H.2 (‘D.H.’ stands for de Havilland) was introduced in the spring of 1915 and was one of the few allied aircraft that could realistically counter the Fokker E.IIIs which had dominated the skies in previous months. As is always the way with arms races, the D.H.2 was soon outclassed by the next wave of German fighters such as the Albatros. The ‘pusher’ format of the D.H.2 (engine at the rear) was, at the time, a very efficient solution to the problem of how to mount a forward-firing machine gun relative to the propeller.