The de Havilland Heron was designed as a replacement for the DH86, just as its little brother, the Dove was designed to replace the Rapide. It incorporated many parts from the Dove, but additional power to cope with the extra load which its stretched fuselage could accomodate was provided by four engines instead of two. It could accomodate up to 17 passengers (although most had less seats than that) and the earliest examples had a fixed undercarriage.Engines were Gypsy Queen 30 MK2 but later on quite a few were converted to a variety of alternatives, with the 290hp supercharged Lycoming being favourite. The aircraft saw worldwide service, with many being used as VIP aircraft. The largest user was Prinair of Puerto Rica, and although there will be no Prinair aircraft on this site, you can get fine examples of that airlines fleet at the Flying Colors website (see links).
CLICK on the image to download the file
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All Nippon Airways of Japan operated Herons and Doves but I've not been able to find out anything about them, apart from finding one or two photographs. I can't even be certain that the letters which form the titles are correct! Its a nice looking plane though, and if you are going to do some flying in Japan, you might as well have something Japanese to fly in. The colour of this aircraft has changed since I did the screenprint - but I wont change the screenprint until I add red spinners. I'm working on it
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MacBraynes was a well known Scottish company who operated public transport
and freight services throughout the Western Isles and the 'West Coast' of
Scotland. All their vehicles and steamers were inclined to be rather
idiosyncratic and unusual, but they had a very nice, bright colour scheme
and were very pleasing to the eye. Today, nearly thirty years after the company
ceased to exist (although a shipping company Caledonian MacBrayne continues,
for the moment, to operate sea ferry services) they are still held in high
regard by a few, generally more mature, enthusiasts. Memorabilia from the
company is widely collected and quite a few of their buses are preserved.
Unfortunately - they never operated planes! However, if they had, it would
have been aircraft like the Heron that they would have used. In an ideal
world, they might even have aspired to a Carvair, which would have been useful
for transporting cars to the islands. So this is what I imagine their Heron
would have looked like...
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Cambrian Airways operated five de Havilland Herons between 1956 and 1959. This aircraft actually was only leased from Overseas Air Transport, but it was painted up in the full colour scheme of that time, as depicted here. Unlike the Macbraynes Heron above, this earlier aircraft had Gypsy Queen engines and a fixed undercarriage.
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This was one of five Herons operated by UAT in the 1950s and '60s. I dont know much about the airline - presumably they operated domestic air services in France!
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BEA operated two Herons during the sixties and early seventies.
They were used on services to the Western Isles of Scotland, which required them to land on the cockleshell runway at Barra. The fixed undercarriage was probably an advantage for this type of operation, as there were less parts to corrode, and less seals to be damaged by the sea water (which they certainly had to taxi through!)
The best way to get sound and a panel for the Heron is to download David Henderson's great Prinair package(see LINKS) which includes Dana McGee's panel (HERONV2.ZIP) and a great Lycoming sound called MULTIENG.ZIP. Mike Hambly does Gypsy engine sounds for the Miles Magister (MAG1.ZIP) which might be suitable for the Heron 1 - I'm not sure though, because the Magister only had one engine, and the Heron has four!