De Havilland D.H. 82A

De Havilland D.H. 82A Tiger Moth

When hostilities commenced in Europe in September 1939, the still embryonic Indian Air Force consisted of one incomplete squadron with 16 officers and 144 other ranks while there were no units exclusively for training purposes. Till then all aircrew training had been carried out in Great Britain with technical personnel receiving elementary training at the Aircraft Depot, Karachi. However, with the decision to expand the IAF to four squadrons, five Coast Defence Flights and a reserve of 300 qualified pilots and 3000 technical personnel, the building up of a training structure became imperative. Towards the end of 1939 the first flying training school was improvised at Risalpur, the Tiger Moth two-seat biplane becoming the primary training aircraft.
Chosen as “Trainer of the Empire”, the Tiger Moth had earlier made its debut in India at flying clubs the more important of which, from the service’s point of view, being the Northern India Flying Club at Walton, Lahore. With advent of war, RAF instructors were attached to the flying club for training pilots of the newly established IAF Volunteer Reserve and this effort continued till early 1942 after which some Tiger Moths were made available for anti-aircraft co-operation flying.
By the end of 1941, 364 cadets had received elementary flying training at the 7 flying clubs in British India and 2 in Indian States. For more formalised training instruction, larger numbers of Tiger Moths were received and these largely equipped Nos. 1 and 2 Elementary Flying Training Schools at Begumpet and Jodhpur respectively, the aircraft being painted all-yellow in the mid-war scheme for trainers. In the war years, some Tiger Moths were assembled by Tata’s Aircraft Assembly Factory at Santa Cruz. Of the 84 numbers “lent” by the flying, clubs, 30 were returned by the Air Force after the war.

On 27th November 1947, with India independent, a large quantity of Tiger Moths were disposed to HAL Bangalore from amongst the war surplus and nearly 100 Tiger Moths reconditioned. These continued to serve the elementary trainer needs at Begumpet and Jodhpur, thousands of flying pupils having their first taste of flight in the “Tiger”, and a number of Tiger Moths were on strength at the Artillery School, Deolali in the early fifties. With the availability of HT-2s, the Tiger Moths were transferred to the Auxiliary Air Force and were amongst flying equipment of initially No. 51 (Delhi) Auxiliary Air Force squadron followed by No. 52 (Bombay) A.A.F. Squadron based at Safdarjang and Juhu respectively. The venerable Tiger Moth was phased out of this training role in 1957. In the sixties, some ex IAF Tiger Moths were alloted civil registration.
Notes :

Flown for the first time on October 26th 1931, the Tiger Moth was virtually a development of the D.H. 60T Moth and, as the D.H. 82A, was built in very large numbers as a primary trainer during World War II. Largely involved with the historic Empire Training Scheme, over 7000 Tiger Moths were produced, including 4000 for the R.A.F. The most famous of the de Havilland Moth series of light two seat biplanes, the Tiger Moth was powered by a 130 h.p. d.H. Gipsy Major engine.