Range Map
• nm at current load
• click map to move • two fingers to move map
Payload vs. Range
gal
Fuel on board
lbs
Extra weight
nm
Range
Mission Profile
- High-Performance
- Tailwheel
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Estimated Ownership Costs
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About the De Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver
Type certificated 1948
Overview
The De Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver is a benchmark high-wing utility single, designed in 1947 around a single question put to Canadian bush pilots – what do you actually need? It emerged as an all-metal airplane on a 450 hp Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior radial, certified as landplane, floatplane, and skiplane on one type certificate. More than 1,600 were built through 1967, and a large share still fly, which tells you most of what matters about the airframe’s ruggedness.
For a buyer, the Beaver is a specific proposition: short-field load-hauling in a piston airplane, with the character – and the running costs – of a big radial. It seats up to eight, lifts roughly 2,100 lb of useful load, cruises around 125 mph (109 kt) on 95 US gallons of avgas, and gets into places a nosewheel single cannot. What it is not is fast or cheap to feed. Everything about owning one flows from those two facts.
Key Features for GA Buyers
- Three surfaces on one type certificate. Certified on wheels, floats, and skis without a structural change (landplane MTOW 5,100 lb; float configurations near 5,000-5,090 lb). That single-airframe flexibility across seasons and surfaces is the core of the buy-thesis.
- Short-field load-hauling. A high-lift wing, large flaps, and 450 radial horsepower put eight seats and a real payload into strips and lakes that rule out most singles.
- Built for the long haul. All-metal construction and a 75-year service record keep parts, knowledge, and airframes available; on any given airframe, corrosion history – especially on floats – matters more than hours.
Trade-offs
- The radial is the whole cost story. The R-985 burns roughly 24 gph of increasingly scarce avgas, runs a 1,200-hour TBO (extendable to 1,600), and overhauls in the tens of thousands of dollars through a shrinking pool of specialist shops. Budget on the order of $340/hr in direct operating cost, fuel and engine reserve dominating it – well above a modern flat-six single.
- Not a cross-country machine. A ~109 kt cruise and ~395 nm range make the Beaver a short-leg workhorse, not a traveler.
- The premium is real. Used piston Beavers trade from roughly $290,000 to $900,000; you pay a premium over a Cessna 185 that does much of the lighter work for less.
See Also
- Cessna 185 Skywagon – the standard wheeled-bush single, faster and cheaper to run on a flat-six. Compare
- Cessna 206 Stationair – a fixed-gear utility load-hauler, also float-capable. Compare
- Cessna 208 Caravan – the turbine utility single owners step up to when avgas and radial overhauls stop adding up. Compare
Technical Specifications
Dimensions & Weights
- Height
- 9.0 ft
- Length
- 30.3 ft
- Parking area (ft2)
- 2047.4 ft2
- Max Takeoff Weight
- Source: FAA Type Certificate Data Sheet 5,100 lbs
- Useful Load
- Source: third-party reference 2,100 lbs
- Fuel Capacity
- Source: FAA Type Certificate Data Sheet 95 gal
Performance
- Cruise Speed
- Source: third-party reference 109 KTAS
- Never-Exceed (VNE)
- Source: FAA Type Certificate Data Sheet 156 KIAS
- Max Structural Cruise (VNO)
- Source: FAA Type Certificate Data Sheet 126 KIAS
- Approach Speed
- Estimated/derived; not a published figure 51 KIAS
- Stall, Clean (VS1)
- Source: third-party reference 52 KIAS
- Range
- Source: third-party reference 395 NM
- Service Ceiling
- Source: third-party reference 18,000 ft
- Rate of Climb
- 1020 fpm
Engine
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Sources
Where the figures on this page come from. De Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver specifications are traced to published references; estimated values are flagged inline next to the figure.
See how the De Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver stacks up against similar aircraft