In the summer of 1940, Nazi Germany's advance across Europe seemed unstoppable. As the once mighty France teetered on the edge of defeat after a brutal campaign, Britain braced itself for invasion.
Faced with this dire threat, British High Command made a bold decision: every aircraft capable of flight would be called upon to defend the Commonwealth.

Among these unlikely defenders was the de Havilland Tiger Moth, a simple biplane trainer never designed for combat with a hidden potential for adaptation.

Engineers quickly came up with a series of plans and designs to adapt the Tiger Moth for war. First, they fitted bomb racks capable of carrying up to 240 pounds of explosives. Student pilots, their training barely complete, prepared for the possibility of dive-bombing enemy forces from altitudes as low as 500 feet, armed with only a pistol.

Some crazier planned variants included "paraslashers" - blade-like attachments designed to disable enemy parachutists mid-air. Others underwent tests as chemical dispensers, with the capacity to spread dangerous substances over advancing ground troops.

Despite its lack of armor, the Tiger Moth, a trainer once solely responsible for teaching the basics of flight, now prepared to defend the British shores from full-scale war.


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Join Dark Skies as we explore the world of aviation with cinematic short documentaries featuring the biggest and fastest airplanes ever built, top-secret military projects, and classified missions with hidden untold true stories. Including US, German, and Soviet warplanes, along with aircraft developments that took place during World War I, World War 2, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Gulf War, and special operations mission in between.

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