Metal Mosquito built massively in the US (1 Viewer)

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Don't forget the duct tape and safety wire!
 
Hundred mile-an-hour tape is great stuff, but on a pretty airliner the passengers begin to worry when they see it taping small doors and things closed because latches have broken... If it's not in the MEL the aircraft can fly about for days with tape over the broken doors!
 
Snowygrouch said:
It was certainly not invisible, but was most certainly considerably harder to pick up than metal aircraft were. I have read this directly in German Air Ministry meeting records, so I would
not call that a "myth".
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I strongly suspect that is a function of the frequencies used by most German radars. Most German radars used relatively long wavelengths, and even thought the Mosquito had a lot of metal parts under the wooden skin, and the engines / props should make a fetching target, the fact that many of these parts fall below the optical region, in fact below the Mie-region, for the frequencies of the German radars had to hurt performance.


Things like the Rotterdam/Berlin and Bremen radars started to push the wavelengths down and they would have found the Mosquitos easier targets, however so few of those were produced, and so late in the conflict, that they probably had little impact.


The Mosquito would have been much less hard to track using mid/late war Allied systems.


Speaking of Martin, have you perused the post war POW interrogations of him?

T!
 
pbehn said:
The feedback from people in USA was nonsense just basically we don't build it so we don't like it and we have the P-38.
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That is absolutely not the case.

A postgram from Washington, received by the Air Ministry on 23 February 1943 contained the first official request from the Americans for PR Mosquitoes.

"We desire to re-equip photo-reconnaissance squadrons in, or destined for, the European Theater at 65 U.E. and North Africa at 26 U.E. with the P.R.U. version of your Mosquito aircraft modified for American cameras. When we compare our aircraft in production and the tactical operational range of your Mosquito with our F-5/P-38, there seems no doubt the purposes combined air forces will be best served if the A.A.F. curtail their conversion of P-38 and rely in part on your Mosquito production..."

The Americans wanted just 3 aircraft in March, 15 in May, 20 in June and July followed by 25 a month for the rest of the year.

The British replied on 8th March that Canadian production was likely to exceed British needs and that these bomber aircraft could be easily changed to P.R. aircraft, the responsibility for which would rest with the Americans.

Unfortunately things move fast in wartime and on 1 April (partly following a British decision to equip Coastal Command squadrons with the Mosquito) the Americans were told sorry, we can't give you any.

When the Americans pressed for at least some Mosquitoes it was Portal who wrote to Arnold saying that American officers had said that their F-5 was 'fully satisfactory for P.R. work, it's as good as the Spitfire'. That is being hoist with your own petard.

Nonetheless, Arnold on 14 April pressed for just 4 Mosquitoes for North Africa, arguing that they were vital for 'special mapping projects' as they could 'go beyond the F-5s range'.

A week later the USN got in on the act, asking for 150 Mosquitoes to train crews for the two Mosquito equipped night fighter squadrons it wanted! This was quite impossible and the Air Ministry with the connivance of the USAAF stalled on the request.

Next the USAAF submitted a detailed breakdown of its Mosquito requirements, 235 by the end of 1943.

British resistance finally crumbled, resulting in the Arnold-Courtenay Agreement by which the British agreed to supply the USAAF with 120 Mosquito aircraft.

The saga did not end here, but the idea that the Americans did not want the Mosquito because they didn't build it, or that the considered the F-5/P-38 capable for some of the tasks in hand is demonstrably false.
 
I cant argue with that but that isn't feedback it is desires and instructions from people at the top in February 1943. I was recalling something posted here about the early experience with the Mosquito in US hands, which was similar to the B-26. It was made of wood which no one liked, it had a high take off and landing speed and the engines weren't handed. Between September 1941 and February 1943 there were many opinions on the Mosquito, initially Harris and Bomber Command didn't know what to do with it. It was around this time that the British found out they weren't actually hitting anything. The De Havilland "Mosquito"
 
gruad said:
But what if those same manufacturers decided that the US, without the metal shortage of the UK, could produce a metal version of the Mosquito?
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This reminds me of the postwar I.Ae. 24 Calquin and the later I.Ae. 30 Ñancú



A true Mosquito, for contrast.


Both the Calquin and Ñancú are essentially a metal DH Mosquito. There's no tech on these postwar aircraft that couldn't apply to US design and production in WW2.
 
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As was the case with many aircraft types (of all nations), it wasn't so much the supply of materials to build the aircraft as it was getting enough engines to equip the airframe.

Ok, so now the US will mass produce an all-metal Mossie - but where will the engines come from? Rolls Royce and Packard were doing the best they could to keep the many types supplied that required the engine.
 
GrauGeist said:
Ok, so now the US will mass produce an all-metal Mossie - but where will the engines come from? Rolls Royce and Packard were doing the best they could to keep the many types supplied that required the engine.
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Install the V-1710.
 
Installing the V-1710 would probably work rather well as the demand and production for it were falling off in mid to late 1944.

So basically we have the US in the spring of 1943 realizing how useful the Mosquito could be and asking the British for them, at least in dozens. And the British saying, "thanks for compliment but sorry, we can't supply them".
Even the US couldn't snap it's figures and flip a switch and churn out aircraft of a new design in a matter of weeks or months.
As mentioned back on page #1 a metal Mosquito is almost a new plane, yes it would use the engine installations and landing gear and some other bits and bobs but changing the fuselage to metal means designing (and stress calculating) longerions, stingers, formers/frames and size and thickness of the metal sheeting/skin. Same for the wings, replace wood spars with metal spars, new dimensions and weights and so on.
Now design the jigs and fixtures to assemble these pieces with, Even starting in April of 1943 you would be lucky to have first production planes flying in early 1944 and large numbers (scores) coming out of the factory in the early summer of 1944 at which point they start becoming unnecessary.

In order to have any real impact on the war the decision would have had to have been made much earlier than the spring of 1943.

Please note that whatever success the Mosquito had as a night fighter or recon plane in 1942 and early 43 there were only TWO squadrons using them as day bombers during that period.
Yes they conducted a number of high profile raids but these were carefully planned and not done on a several times a week or even weekly basis.
 
US should probably need to act already by 1942 if we want for the US-made Mosquito to became part of the Allied arsenal in a timely manner.
 
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