07/31/2009. The two-seat Hornet Moth trainer featured an enclosed and heated cabin with side-by-side seating. The prototype was first flown by Geoffrey de Havilland at Hatfield, England on May 9, 1934. The prototype was fitted with wings with rounded tips, initial production aircraft were built with tapered wings of increased span. This new wing gave a better cruise speed but tended to drop a wing near the stall. Rectangular wings were then fitted to the most of the subsequent production aircraft, designated D.H.87B, this final wing design was offered as a retrofit to D.H.87A owners. A total of 163 D.H.87s were produced, all had folding wings.

The prototype was the first de Havilland aircraft registered in the British experimental 'Class B' section as E-1, this was changed to the standard registration G-ADIR on June 11, 1935. By the time it was pressed into RAF service on February 4, 1940, it had been converted to a D.H.87B. It crashed at RAF Kenley, London, on December 22, 1943.

Eleven aircraft were shipped to Canada and assembled by de Havilland Canada at Downsview, Ontario. CF-AVH was the first, registered on October 28, 1935 as a D.H.87A, later converted into a D.H.87B. It was lost on October 13, 1939, when it hit trees on take off from Calm Lake, Ontario.