DHC-2 Turbo Beaver Electric
The DHC-2 Turbo Beaver — the turbine-converted Beaver that took the de Havilland Canada bushplane into the jet age — captured as an electric RC scale model.
About
The Turbo Beaver was de Havilland Canada's response to the inevitable: the Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior radial that powered the original DHC-2 Beaver was a magnificent piston engine, but by the early 1960s it was increasingly hard to maintain and supply, and turbine technology had matured to the point where the bush-aviation market began asking for a turboprop conversion. De Havilland Canada developed the DHC-2 Mk. III Turbo Beaver in the early 1960s — first flown in December 1963 — replacing the R-985 with a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-6 turboprop. The result was a Beaver that could lift more, climb faster, fly higher, and operate with the cleaner cold-weather starting characteristics of a turbine engine.
Sixty original Mk. III Turbo Beaver airframes were built by de Havilland Canada, and in subsequent decades many original piston Beavers were retrofitted to turbine power by Viking Air and other engineering shops — extending the airframe's working life by decades and keeping the Beaver competitive against newer turbine-from-the-factory bush designs. The unmistakable Turbo Beaver silhouette is recognizable from the original Beaver shape with one big change: a longer nose to accommodate the PT6's reduction gearbox, and the smoother profile of a turbine cowling rather than a radial-engine ring cowl.
This model is the electric RC implementation of the Turbo Beaver — a brushless outrunner motor standing in for the PT6 turboprop in the simulator's powerplant configuration, and the same generous wing area and gentle handling of the original Beaver airframe.
In the simulator
A friendly bushplane scale subject with the same Beaver handling character as the rest of the family. Slow, stable, with the gentle stall behavior that makes short-field operations teachable. Use it for bushplane-style scale flying: short takeoffs, low-and-slow scenic legs, and unhurried pattern circuits. Pairs well with grass strips, lakes, and rural fields. A turbine-conversion alternative to the original DHC-2 Beaver in this same pack, alongside the smaller 25e variant.
