All metal Mosquito ??

[Empiricist]

Originally Posted by mhuxt

Can you recommend any other reference articles / books? I'd be especially interested in the P-39 comparison, and in any info you might know of re: Soviet use of wood materials in aircraft construction.

Thanks again.

Give me some time -- will prepare a list for you.

When it comes to the Soviets I would recommend wartime issues of the German "Luftwissen" magazines. The British "Aeroplane" magazine, Vol. LXV No. 1682, August 20th 1943, published (page 202) small but very interesting article based on the "Luftwissen" mentioned, where the Germans analysed the airframes of captured Yak-1, LaGG-3 and MiG-3. The British titled their article "Russian Aircraft Timbers".

[drgondog]

Graham - its hard to say as rivets are an often unaccounted for component of weight for metal fabrication.

Having said this I have long been out of the industry and my only experience with non-metal fabrication components was with 1960-70's composites and never wood construction.

It is intriguing to me to visualize re-designing an existing conventional airframe to employ spruce versus 2024 or 7075, especially in the case of shear load transfer for both panels and beams, where the adhesives replace rivets and fasteners.

[Empiricist]

Re: post #31 and strange wording "balsa-ply-balsa".

We do have misunderstanding in this case. For the Mosquito airframe it was "ply-balsa-ply". Below you can see one of illustrations of Professor Nicholas J. Hoff's article mentioned.


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[Empiricist]

Dennis,

Thanks. It could not be a coincidence that the clipping indicated by you is of September 1943 and in November 1943 the American aviation press informed that the Pluswood delivers its materials for the British Mosquitos.

[Bill Walker]

By September 1943 the Mosquito was in full production at de Havilland Canada in Downsview (now part of Toronto). I wonder if this is where the US plywood was going?

[Empiricist]

Originally Posted by Bill Walker

By September 1943 the Mosquito was in full production at de Havilland Canada in Downsview (now part of Toronto).

That's right. The British "Aeroplane" magazine, Vol. LXV No. 1682, August 20th 1943, published an interesting article under the title of "Mosquitoes from Canada". They informed that the first two Canadian-built Mosquito Mk IVs landed in UK on August 9th, 1943. One of them was flown by the US civilian crew (captained by George Hersam); the second one was flown by the RCAF crew with F/O J. G. Uren at the controls.

Originally Posted by Bill Walker

I wonder if this is where the US plywood was going?

Could be. In fact the Mosquitoes mentioned by you had in them much more non-British materials and components than the US wooden materials only. Huge majority of those Mosquitoes elements was the North American continent-made. In fact they were the British-designed but North American-made aircraft of the US and Canadian elements. Perhaps that was the reason why those planes were so good because the Americans have always had the best chemicals for aviation veneers and plywoods (it was their big investment in aviation industry in interwar period). The British veneers and plywoods have never been so good and the Horsa case study in the CBI is good example, when that glider almost disappeared under the termites attack whereas the US CG-4A remained fully airworthy without any damages in its airframe.

The same "Aeroplane" issue, as above mentioned, informed as follows: "Mark I Mosquitoes built in Canada are already in service with the USAAF and RCAF on the American continent. Like those which have now been delivered to Great Britain , they are entirely Canadian-built except for certain fittings like hydraulic jacks which were sent over from this side of the Atlantic."

[MarkRS]

Originally Posted by Empiricist

You did good job in this thread. You are absolutely right. The Mosquito was neither better nor worse than all-metal planes of that era. But in the field of wooden airframes it was high-tech aircraft in the 1940s circumstances.

Thanks. The construction of the Mosquito is still high tech even by today's standards. I found a 2007 paper in Portuguese describing its construction in arguement for using Portuguese cork in the construction of modern (civil) aircraft. I have great difficulty at work getting past the perception that wooden constructions are "old fashioned", when they are sometimes the best material for the task. I cannot tell you the number of cameras I have stabilized with wood to damp out unwanted vibrations. The nearest man-made composite is linen based phenolic.

[MarkRS]

http://web.me.com/lllanducci/EAA-138...ber%202009.pdf
Here is an interesting reference to Pluswood by the son/grandson of the company owners in which he states that: "At the start of WWII, the Government hired our Company, along with the others mentioned in the previous articles, to manufacture plywood for the British " Mosquito " bomber. Our Company shipped over 1000 train car loads of special, high strength plywood to England."

Here is another article from the same source:
http://web.me.com/lllanducci/EAA-138...uly%202009.pdf States that Pluswood provided 35% of the plywood for the British built Mosquito and Roddis provided the rest. It also states that Roddis provided the plywood for the Canadian build.

[Empiricist]

Here is yet another American wartime clipping on Mosquito manufacturing. This time it comes from the Popular Science monthly, December 1943 issue - the article under the title of "Flying Plywood with a Sting".

http://books.google.pl/books?id=fScD...201943&f=false

[waldo_pepper]

I worked for a furniture business in the 1990s in which the manager's father worked on Mosquito production at Bankstown NSW Australia. He was a cabinet maker but no longer with us.
Bill.