Excellent stuff Andy!
Mosquito RS700 Restoration
- Thread starter Crimea_River
- Start date
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Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Great stuff.
- Thread starter
- #163
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks guys.
- Thread starter
- #164
Crimea_River
Marshal
For those interested, here's an update of our progress over the last two years as presented at our AGM two weeks ago.
Beautiful
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Great presentation, and good to see you mentioned. Thanks for posting Andy.
Good stuff Andy!
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
Great work. I love seeing aviation history preserved. The amount of dedication to see it through is impressive. I imagine volunteers dropping out regularly from frustration.
Way to go!
Way to go!
- Thread starter
- #170
Crimea_River
Marshal
That has not been a problem for us. We have a good cross section of people that has actually grown over the years, including a couple of young teens which I really like to see. We've lost a few to natural causes and only one to disagreement that I recall.
Right now at home, I have completed the elevator control balance and am starting on the main fuel valve, throttle control links and the radiator flap control assembly.
Completed Elevator Control Balance:
Throttle control (note corrosion and the bent arms):
Radiator Flap Control:
This is how the latter looks in the real airplane:
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Some nice work there Andy, and a bit different from 1/48th scale !!
Good stuff Andy!
Great videos Andy, thanks for sharing it
- Thread starter
- #174
Crimea_River
Marshal
It's been almost exactly 2 years since I posted anything here but things have been chugging along. My focus on this project is now the cockpit area and so I've been busy cataloguing and restoring what we have and trying to source what we don't. I will try to cover highlights of the last two years of my work here in this post but may stop for air before that, so bear with me please. All photos were taken by me unless noted.
Taken in September 2021, the below pic shows some of the original copper grounding straps being reinstalled in the port side of the cockpit. Because the aircraft is all wood, there is no direct means to ground all metal parts so they all have to be connected together via these copper earthing strips. Yes, the routing looks rough, and that's because these are the original strips removed, cleaned, and nailed back into exaclty the same holes from whence they came. These were apparently slapped in very quickly on the assemby line and no two Mosquitos are exaclty the same in this regard. Clearly this work needs to be done before any other parts go in.
If you look toward the nose, you can see that an extension to the strip has been identified by green masking tape. The strap ws cut here but I know from references that the strip must extend to the floor to pick up other metal parts there as well as the nose blister frame. To fill in the missing pieces, I was able to source new material from Spain (Inicio).
Though not cockpit work, my structural engineering background was put to use in designing and co-ordinating the fabrication of a wing jig that enables us to work on both sides of the wing simultaneously. In November of 2021, the single piece wing was swung from its original tilted position to upright so that it now stands on the forward spar and leans against new bracing members. Below is the underside of the wing with all 10 of the fuel cells removed
Back in the cockpit, the next major step was to get the floor reinstalled but before doing that, all of the pipe runs had to be cleaned, identified, and reinstalled as these run on the underside of the floor and out into the bomb bay. The below pic (credit R. de Boer) was taken in the first quarter of 2022 and shows me working on the underside of the floor. The large tubes right in front of me are hydraulic lines to control the flaps and undercarriage. Those for the bomb doors would normally be here as well, except that Spartan Air Services removed the doors and their operators. The smaller tubes in the forground are pneumatic lines that control the brakes.
Jumping ahead to June 2022, we can see that the floor is now installed which opened up an array of new work that could be done. In the below pic taken from the Navigator's position, we can see the hydraulic line connections on the floor and some of the under-floor tubing described above peeking through right by the crew hatch. The wooden structure is the "doghouse" that supports the rudder pedals and this is only loosely installed here to check fit. The doghouse was pretty badly beaten up and was restored by another member of our team using as much of the original wood as possible. The two cables are the rudder actuators that will ultimately connect to the pedals. The shaft at the bottom is the torque tube for the aileron control which awaits the control column that will be mounted on the silver coloured bracket. At the very bottom of the pic is the connection to the emergency hydraulic hand pump. The bracket at the extreme left center is the mount for the magnetic compass
Taken at the same time but looking toward the pilot's position, we can see below our NOS (New Old Stock) throttle box trial-fitted as well as the elevator trim control set into place. The aileron control cables can be seen starting from the end of the torque tube heading to port and then doing a 90 around a pulley to run through a stuffing box along with the elevator cables. The box forms a pressure seal at the vertical wall, known as Bulkhead 2 which also supports a 1/4" armoured steel plate.
In October of 2022, I managed to fressen up our scratched original label for the vacuum switch:
In July, we swung a deal with a Facebook follower to obtain an original Mosquito Junction Box B that had clearly been modified to include a switch for a fuel jettison system so we suspect that this box was mounted in one of the 10 Spartan Mosquitos, if not ours. It took a while to co-ordinate the trade as it was coming from across the country and it finally arrived early this year. The box was in pretty bad shape when we got it with cut wires, smashed fuel gauges and surface damage (picture via M. Niewiadomski).
I'm going to stop at this point and resume the narrative tomorrow. Hope you find the above interesting.
Taken in September 2021, the below pic shows some of the original copper grounding straps being reinstalled in the port side of the cockpit. Because the aircraft is all wood, there is no direct means to ground all metal parts so they all have to be connected together via these copper earthing strips. Yes, the routing looks rough, and that's because these are the original strips removed, cleaned, and nailed back into exaclty the same holes from whence they came. These were apparently slapped in very quickly on the assemby line and no two Mosquitos are exaclty the same in this regard. Clearly this work needs to be done before any other parts go in.
If you look toward the nose, you can see that an extension to the strip has been identified by green masking tape. The strap ws cut here but I know from references that the strip must extend to the floor to pick up other metal parts there as well as the nose blister frame. To fill in the missing pieces, I was able to source new material from Spain (Inicio).
Though not cockpit work, my structural engineering background was put to use in designing and co-ordinating the fabrication of a wing jig that enables us to work on both sides of the wing simultaneously. In November of 2021, the single piece wing was swung from its original tilted position to upright so that it now stands on the forward spar and leans against new bracing members. Below is the underside of the wing with all 10 of the fuel cells removed
Back in the cockpit, the next major step was to get the floor reinstalled but before doing that, all of the pipe runs had to be cleaned, identified, and reinstalled as these run on the underside of the floor and out into the bomb bay. The below pic (credit R. de Boer) was taken in the first quarter of 2022 and shows me working on the underside of the floor. The large tubes right in front of me are hydraulic lines to control the flaps and undercarriage. Those for the bomb doors would normally be here as well, except that Spartan Air Services removed the doors and their operators. The smaller tubes in the forground are pneumatic lines that control the brakes.
Jumping ahead to June 2022, we can see that the floor is now installed which opened up an array of new work that could be done. In the below pic taken from the Navigator's position, we can see the hydraulic line connections on the floor and some of the under-floor tubing described above peeking through right by the crew hatch. The wooden structure is the "doghouse" that supports the rudder pedals and this is only loosely installed here to check fit. The doghouse was pretty badly beaten up and was restored by another member of our team using as much of the original wood as possible. The two cables are the rudder actuators that will ultimately connect to the pedals. The shaft at the bottom is the torque tube for the aileron control which awaits the control column that will be mounted on the silver coloured bracket. At the very bottom of the pic is the connection to the emergency hydraulic hand pump. The bracket at the extreme left center is the mount for the magnetic compass
Taken at the same time but looking toward the pilot's position, we can see below our NOS (New Old Stock) throttle box trial-fitted as well as the elevator trim control set into place. The aileron control cables can be seen starting from the end of the torque tube heading to port and then doing a 90 around a pulley to run through a stuffing box along with the elevator cables. The box forms a pressure seal at the vertical wall, known as Bulkhead 2 which also supports a 1/4" armoured steel plate.
In October of 2022, I managed to fressen up our scratched original label for the vacuum switch:
In July, we swung a deal with a Facebook follower to obtain an original Mosquito Junction Box B that had clearly been modified to include a switch for a fuel jettison system so we suspect that this box was mounted in one of the 10 Spartan Mosquitos, if not ours. It took a while to co-ordinate the trade as it was coming from across the country and it finally arrived early this year. The box was in pretty bad shape when we got it with cut wires, smashed fuel gauges and surface damage (picture via M. Niewiadomski).
I'm going to stop at this point and resume the narrative tomorrow. Hope you find the above interesting.
Snautzer01
Honourably banned
- 43,507
- Mar 26, 2007
Very nice.
special ed
2nd Lieutenant
- 5,731
- May 13, 2018
Very impressive work! Why.... it's just a giant balsa model plane!
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Great stuff Andy. You're all doing some marvellous work.
- Thread starter
- #179
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks everyone. Glad you are enjoying this.
Late in October of last year we received a donated brake differential unit from KF Aerospace of Kelowna, BC who now own Mosquito B.35 VR796 that was restored for Bob Jens. We loaned them a section of fuel pipe so they could fly the aircraft from Vancouver to Kelowna and so they gave us a spare differential unit that they had kept for their Tempest restoration. This is a rather complicated little beastie, essentially a regulating valve that sends compressed air to the one or both brakes via inputs from the rudder pedals and application of the brake lever on the control column. Here it is being held in position by my hairy arm in a R. de Boer photo. It fits on the vertical wood stringer and the lever on its left face connects to the rudder pedals.
And in a display of either courage or stupidity, I took the sucker apart to clean the innards:
Yes, I got it all cleaned and put back together and today I bought some fittings to build a test stand to make sure it works properly.
November saw me undertake a number of small fabrication projects to make parts that we did not have. Among those was an important piece that forms the center post from which the instrument panels are partly supported. Fortunately, we have the drawing and the aluminum part was made by slowly shaping the flat sheet around a wooden form with a rubber hammer, pressing the lightening holes, and forming the bulged area that would otherwise foul a spring support for the blind flying panel. Here are a series of pics showing a bit of the process:
And here is the part being trial-fitted. It's the bare aluminum upper piece that is fastened to the cockpit roof and loosely connected to the main post. The later was obtained in a trade with a group in New Zealand who are restoring FB.VI HR339.
If your eyes are sharp, you can pick out a slight interference of the two parts at the top of the large lower post. This has since been fixed.
Picking up again on the Junction Box B story mentioned in the earlier post above, here's a picture of the unit as it was received in February (source R. de Boer):
Anyone who has modeled a Mosquito probably recognizes this item as being located on the starboard side of the cockpit in front of the Navigator and just below the canopy sill. This box varied a lot depending on the model of Mosquito and has multiple functions. In addition to being an electrical junction box, it also houses fuel gauges, fire extinguisher buttons, and a number of other switches and meters assoictaed with the main electrical system that have either gone missing or were removed during modifications. The part also supports the radiator louvre controls and so we were happy to see one of these come available as fabricating one with the limited drawings in our position would have been a real challenge. The red switches to the rght of the fuel gauges are post-war additions and we have reason to believe that this panel was mounted in one of Spartan's Mosquitos, if not ours.
After documenting the internals with extensive photos, I stripped all of the contents out of the box, disassembled it, and bead blasted the paint off. I was curious to see if this panel matched the support locations in our cockpit and was sad to discover that it did not. Three of the 5 flanges for bolt connections missed their respective connections on our fuselage by between 3/8 and 3/4 inches and so I had to conclude that this box did not come from our aircraft. It also meant that I had to modifiy our connection points which consumed a bit of time. Below in another R. de Boer pic, you can see the bare box installed at center. To the left is the instrument panel post assembly with the fabricated part described above painted with a black wrinkle paint. More on that in a later post.
The above essentially shows the cockpit as it stands today. In the next update in a week or so, I'll talk about the process for identifying and obtaining all of our missing instruments.
Thanks again for your interest.
Late in October of last year we received a donated brake differential unit from KF Aerospace of Kelowna, BC who now own Mosquito B.35 VR796 that was restored for Bob Jens. We loaned them a section of fuel pipe so they could fly the aircraft from Vancouver to Kelowna and so they gave us a spare differential unit that they had kept for their Tempest restoration. This is a rather complicated little beastie, essentially a regulating valve that sends compressed air to the one or both brakes via inputs from the rudder pedals and application of the brake lever on the control column. Here it is being held in position by my hairy arm in a R. de Boer photo. It fits on the vertical wood stringer and the lever on its left face connects to the rudder pedals.
And in a display of either courage or stupidity, I took the sucker apart to clean the innards:
Yes, I got it all cleaned and put back together and today I bought some fittings to build a test stand to make sure it works properly.
November saw me undertake a number of small fabrication projects to make parts that we did not have. Among those was an important piece that forms the center post from which the instrument panels are partly supported. Fortunately, we have the drawing and the aluminum part was made by slowly shaping the flat sheet around a wooden form with a rubber hammer, pressing the lightening holes, and forming the bulged area that would otherwise foul a spring support for the blind flying panel. Here are a series of pics showing a bit of the process:
And here is the part being trial-fitted. It's the bare aluminum upper piece that is fastened to the cockpit roof and loosely connected to the main post. The later was obtained in a trade with a group in New Zealand who are restoring FB.VI HR339.
If your eyes are sharp, you can pick out a slight interference of the two parts at the top of the large lower post. This has since been fixed.
Picking up again on the Junction Box B story mentioned in the earlier post above, here's a picture of the unit as it was received in February (source R. de Boer):
Anyone who has modeled a Mosquito probably recognizes this item as being located on the starboard side of the cockpit in front of the Navigator and just below the canopy sill. This box varied a lot depending on the model of Mosquito and has multiple functions. In addition to being an electrical junction box, it also houses fuel gauges, fire extinguisher buttons, and a number of other switches and meters assoictaed with the main electrical system that have either gone missing or were removed during modifications. The part also supports the radiator louvre controls and so we were happy to see one of these come available as fabricating one with the limited drawings in our position would have been a real challenge. The red switches to the rght of the fuel gauges are post-war additions and we have reason to believe that this panel was mounted in one of Spartan's Mosquitos, if not ours.
After documenting the internals with extensive photos, I stripped all of the contents out of the box, disassembled it, and bead blasted the paint off. I was curious to see if this panel matched the support locations in our cockpit and was sad to discover that it did not. Three of the 5 flanges for bolt connections missed their respective connections on our fuselage by between 3/8 and 3/4 inches and so I had to conclude that this box did not come from our aircraft. It also meant that I had to modifiy our connection points which consumed a bit of time. Below in another R. de Boer pic, you can see the bare box installed at center. To the left is the instrument panel post assembly with the fabricated part described above painted with a black wrinkle paint. More on that in a later post.
The above essentially shows the cockpit as it stands today. In the next update in a week or so, I'll talk about the process for identifying and obtaining all of our missing instruments.
Thanks again for your interest.
Ralph Haus
Tech Sergeant
Thank you. Just wish more would take an interest in preserving our past. But curious? How long did it take to build one from scratch?
