More invention

Its Type Record shows that there was much more to the design of the Tiger Moth than is suggested in a previous post.

AP 970 exists today (and has just been extensively revised) as Defence Standard 00-970.

Thank you for identifying that AP 970 persists as DS 00-970; it seems that this AP is the longest lasting official publication, from 1924 to 2014, so far. It would be good to get a bibliography of AP 970 with an index to topics across all the revisions through the years. It is a very practical document that shows what designers were thinking through the evolution of flight.

In respect of Tiger Moths, from Janic Geelen’s opera citare : ” It seems incredible that the highly successful Tiger Moth, the ultimate development of the Moth, should have evolved through such a trial and error process. The drawings were not even started until everybody was satisfied that the mock up was mathematically correct.”

To know this “trial and error process” get the most excellent book ! I think that perhaps what was happening was naked invention at the hands of competent and confident men. What can be found more reliably in the world are disciplined followers, and this, largely for good, is what constitutes the modern aerospace industry. To admit that a successful design arose from a form of chaos is anathema.