Warbird Information Exchange

Rare WWI-Era DeHavilland DH9 Bomber Restored Found Rotting In Elephant Stable Of Maharajah's Palace

What's worse than Miss Scarlet in the Library with the Knife?
Perhaps it's a rare DeHavilland DH9 in the elephant stable of the
palace.

Discovered rotting in the aforementioned palace of the Maharajah
of Bikaner's elephant stable in India, the de Havilland has been
restored by Guy Black and now sits in all its former glory at
London's Imperial War Museum.

The biplane is the only one in Britain and one of the six in the
world, a museum official said.

According to Black, an airplane restorer, "It was a phenomenal
find, like discovering gold."

The improbable discovery was made by a British backpacker, who
photographed a cannibalized DH9 in a new museum at the palace of
Bikaner in Rajasthan 12 years ago, according to Zee News.

On his return to Britain, the photographer circulated his
photograph, and Black, who runs Aero Vintage, a specialist
restoration company, heard about it.

Three years later he visited the palace, and on making inquiries
about the 1918 aircraft, the first British bomber to house bombs in
its fuselage, he was told that it did not exist.

Further inquiries led him to the
palace's former elephant stables, where, among piles of elephant
saddles, was the airframe of the engineless DH9. Along one wall,
Black also discovered six DH9 wings and several tailfins.

"I could not believe my eyes. The DH9 was the most manufactured
bomber of the First World War -- they made more than 2,000 of them
-- but they are as rare as hen's teeth now, and there wasn't a
single one in a collection in Britain," said Black.

According to reports by Daily India, the DH9s had been given by
Britain to a royal family in India's Rajasthan state in the early
1920s to help establish an air force under the post-war Imperial
Gift Scheme.

Black bought two of the rotting hulks, restored one of them,
reported the paper, and sold it to the Imperial War Museum for
about two million US dollars. The restored plane was unveiled at
Duxford, Cambridgeshire, yesterday.

Said Black, "We haven't tried to fly it. I think we probably
could but the museum won't allow it."

"I felt immensely proud seeing it being wheeled out at Duxford.
You couldn't wipe the smile from my face."

Black hopes to restore the other hulk to make fit for flying in
the next two years.

...and for one of their two original He 162s which he is supposedly going to restore to flying condition.

Would have liked to have seen some "before" pictures...