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On the Mosie's construction: Finally, tropical climates would not be very friendly to it, so the CBI and PTO would be problematic.
We've discussed this several years ago....
When a mechanic repairs wood the environment has to be clean and sometimes temperature and humidity controlled, so you could see the problems an aircraft like the Mossie would have experienced in the long term. Additionally working with wood does require a special set of skills and many times repairs actually weaken the over-all structuer. Repairing aluminum structures is much easier IMO and because an aircraft is riveted together, large sections could be replaced without worrying about structutral compromise.
I knew 2 people who operated them and they never had problems, but from what I remember a small portion of the nose was the only area made from wood along with the gun bay doors.I know it's getting a bit off topic, but did the Vampire's partially wooden fuselage construction give any problems in service? (or limit airframe longevity)
I knew 2 people who operated them and they never had problems, but from what I remember a small portion of the nose was the only area made from wood along with the gun bay doors.
Additionally (as mentioned by FLYBOYJ) the construction of the Mossie would have meant repairs and maintence would be more difficult. Service life would also likely be shorter, with aircraft becoming "war weary" more quickly than metal counterparts. Finally, tropical climates would not be very friendly to it, so the CBI and PTO would be problematic.
You'll probably never know to what extent Soviet wooden aircraft had structural failures but I would gamble it was a lot higher than experienced by the rest of the allies. I could tell you one thing however - wood will maintain as long as the temperature and humidity environment remains close to constant. I seen wood aircraft brought from a cool environment into a desert environment. Many of the wood components shrunk and dry rotted while sitting in a hangar!This is actually worth a topic of its own.
Most of the Soviet fighters were all or partially wooden. LaGG-3/La-5/La-7 practically all wooden stuctures, Yaks had wooden wings and (later) wooden fuselage skins. Kept in front line conditions, which meant rain, mud, snow, ice. Late 109's had wooden tails.
Shores describes couple of incidents of structural failures of Mosquito, which caused temporary grounding in Burma. On the other hand, in one time two Mustangs were lost every week due to structural failure. Similar incidents with Spitfires, 109's etc.
I've never seen solid numbers of serviceability or failure rates of wooden planes compared to others.
That's the point I'm trying to make. With the benefit of hindsight, I believe it would have been better to produce larger amount of planes such as the Mosquito to fulfill the roll.
G'day Watanbe.
This is what De Havilland thought as well. They were working on a scaled-up version of the Mosquito, the DH-99, with high-altitude Sabre engines in early 1941. According to De Havilland two DH-99s could be built for the cost of one Short Stirling.
By their reckoning two DH-99s compared to a Stirling carried "more bombs to the target in less time, for less crew hours, for less journey hours and less engine hours, and with much higher performance and manoeuvrability, though without guns."
("Mosquito" Sharpe/Boyer 1971)