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Today we’re going to start the engine on our Tiger Moth. We’ll do some checks on it and then take the aeroplane for a taxi run.

CORRECTION: When pulling the prop through with switches off I said that the throttle should be open. This is incorrect, the throttle should be closed when priming the engine. Also, this is not intended to be an instructional video.

The Tiger Moth is a twoseat, singleengine biplane developed from a series of aircraft that started general aviation in Great Britain after the First World War. Designed by Geoffrey de Havilland the Tiger Moth was developed to meet a British Air Ministry specification for an abinitio training aircraft and first flew on 26 October 1931. It quickly became a commercial success being exported to more than 25 countries and manufactured in seven countries, including Australia.

The fuselage is a steel tube frame covered in plywood and fabric and the wings are of wooden construction also covered in fabric. The Tiger Moth is powered by a 130 horsepower Gipsy Major engine which is started by hand swinging the wooden propeller.

When it started to become clear in the late 1930s that war in Europe was inevitable the British government, realising that they would be short of trained pilots, set up the Empire Air Training Scheme – a plan to train pilots remotely in the dominions. Training bases were established in Australia, Bermuda, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. The Tiger Moth was used as the primary training aircraft in all of these countries and the scheme trained over 37,000 aircrew in Australia alone.

By the time the Second World War broke out Tiger Moths were being used by most Commonwealth air forces as the primary, basic trainer. Between 1940 and 1945 de Havilland Australia built 1,085 Tiger Moths at its plants in Mascot and later Bankstown, the engines being built by General Motors in Victoria.

Some civilianowned Tiger Moths were pressed into service by the Royal Australian Air Force at the start of the war but the majority of the RAAF Tiger Moths were specifically built for them by de Havilland in Australia.

In all 861 Tiger Moths were used by the RAAF, the remainder of the de Havilland Australia production run being delivered to the other Commonwealth countries participating in the EATS. It was the basic trainer for thousands of Australian pilots during the war and continued to be used for training in the RAAF until 1957. After the war Tiger Moths were disposed of by the hundreds and many of them made their way into private ownership, the type forming the basis of the postwar civil flying movement. Many of these aircraft are still active today, including the HARS Tiger Moth, VHDHV.

Built in 1941, the HARS aircraft saw service with the RAAF in No. 5 Service Flying Training School based at Uranquinty, NSW.

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HARS Aviation Museum is open every day (except Christmas Day) and can be found at Shellharbour airport, 54 Airport Road, Albion Park Rail NSW 2527.

This video is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to be instructional or representative of appropriate flight procedures as editing removes the context of the events depicted.