Mosquito vs The Rest

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FLYBOYJ said:
AFAIK only on some of the forward fuselage access doors and non-structural members in later models. I believe just the fuselage of the earlier models were made from wood.
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I'm sure that you are right but I cannot help feeling that if there had been a problem using wood, they would have made the change to metal in the Vampire. There must have been a reason for sticking with it.
 
Glider said:
I'm sure that you are right but I cannot help feeling that if there had been a problem using wood, they would have made the change to metal in the Vampire. There must have been a reason for sticking with it.
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Eventually they did - I believe the Sea Venom had most of the larger wood structures replaced. I think the era of wood for any type of large component on combat aircraft ended there for many of the reasons mentioned earlier.l
 
That's a real sweet looking model (it's missing a prop blade )

I believe just the fuselage of the earlier models were made from wood.
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Yep, from the firewall forward on the fuselage pod was wood in both the Vampire and Venom. It was a practical choice though, the rest was all metal. In the Vampire two-seaters, the first being the NF.10, the dimensons of the width of the cockpit section was designed to exactly that of the cockpit of the Mosquito, which they used as a template for the radar equipped night fighter variant. The NF.10 was a bit of a disaster and most were given to the Egyptians. The same dimensons were applied to the T.11 trainer.

The concept of the Mosquito was the last word in wartime expediency; everything about it was designed to benefit or be in aid of a wartime economy and workforce, from the use of non-strategic materials in its construction to using a labour force and skills not engaged in existing wartime expansion. Its engines and systems were existing designs that didn't have the added development time owing to the usual teething troubles with new technology and it was designed with ease of construction, maintenance and repair in mind. It was very much a product of its time, taking advantage of known factors in its design and offered no real technological advance over its contemporaries; all aspects of it could have been built by anyone engaged in aircraft design and construction elsewhere in the world. Its purpose was also with economy of use in mind; a two-seat twin engined bomber carrying a similar war load to larger medium bombers that had poorer performance and required a larger number of people to operate; Beaverbrook's accountants must have been rubbing their hands together with glee when they first heard about the D.H.98! It couldn't have come at a better time for the British; at the time the Mosquito entered service its military was desperate for a high performance aircraft that could match and beat the efforts of a cunning and determined enemy - the RAF Air Staff just needed a little more convincing of its potential, however.
 
nuuumannn said:
That's a real sweet looking model (it's missing a prop blade )
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That two blade was just for running in the engine. Thanks for the compliment.

Here's the hand made scale flyable prop blade in the works:

 
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i got late to this dance...but its pretty interesting.

has anyone duplicated the mossie design in metal to see if and how the flight characteristics would compare? i would be curious to see the comparison....i think if it could have been done and achieved the same results or better they would have been made that way. for some reason wood must work best in this situation.

one thing you have to remember about wood structure is you have to allow specific times for glues to cure ( like 24 hours ) and those items need to be clamped or compressed in some sort of jig. that is where you may get a huge amount of man hours. wooden frames are "usually" constructed in environments were you have acceptable tolerances to humidty and temp...as both will effect the curing of components. the colder it is the longer the glue will take to dry. also after assembly wooden frames, etc are usually varnished or painted to keep the absorbing humidity ( and the glue from coverings ).

i have a friend who is building a wooden spitfire....a full size flying version that uses an allison engine. the method he is using for the fuse and wings is the exact same thing as the mossie. its 2 thin pieces of playwood sandwiching a matrix of balsa ( with the grain running perpedicular not crossways )....that stuff is freaking STRONG and light. but again its 3 processes opposed to just riviting a skin in place.
 
I've seen a video of an interview with Ralph Hare, who was on the design team, who said that a review had been done (not sure how detailed), and that dH believed that a metal Mossie would be heavier for the same strength.

Anyway, a dH design for a metal mossie would have been a sheet of white paper - the whole concept was inextricably linked to wood construction from the very start.

They were using microwaves to cure the fuselage shells IIRC.

Never read anything about varnish, however the wood surfaces were covered with fabric, madoplam (sp?) I believe.
 
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I am no engineer, but my "schoolboy" understanding of the mosquito structure was that it was a "bonded" sandwich construction, with a basic balsawood core, "bonded" by glues to a hard plywood in layers. The bonding agent was part of the composite structure and helped to give it great strength. There were problems in the beginning with the early bonding agents in that they were not waterproof (I think). I expect that might cause the commposite material to swell at differing rates which would weaken the material and probably cause breakages and or structural failures eventually. Particularly true in the tropics where moisture got into everything.

But i also understand this was addressed by siply changing the bonding agent and making it water resisitant.

On that basis the bonding agent is part of the structure and is part of the "formula" that gives the mosquito its great strength.....

Of course this could all be the rantings of a an ingnorant primary school level non-engineer.....

A measure of just how successful the bonded sandwich construction pioneered by De Havilland is that it is now a major boat building material, completely waterproof and with life expectancies in excess of 30 years......
 
i will be going over the guy's house who is building the spit. i will see if i can snag a few up close pics of the construction and materials. he's an A&P...former airline pilot and friend. i am going to have him inspect the elevator i just repaired and recovered...for my E-LSA.
 
Hey Bobysocks,

It must be a Jurca Spitfire. He should contact Joe Yancey (Yancey Enterprises) in Rialto, California for the Allison. Joe builds a reliable, great-running Allison and he has a couple flying in Jurca Spitfires. Maybe he'd like to see one in person and talk to an owner of a Yancey's Allison for some firsthand knowledge? One of the Jurcas we did the engine for has an original Spitfire control stick, seat, and instrument panel and it looks VERY real ... except for no rivets. He gets 95% of the performance of the real pPitfire for 20% of the cost. No bad!

The aircraft in question is finished as a Mk V, but you can finish them as alomst any Mark.

If so, let me know and I can give you cantact information.

Best regards, - Greg
 
I thought the Jurca 'Spitfire' was around 1/2 scale, using the same basic design layout as his other types, such as the Jurca Tempete, a 1/3rd size Tempest, of sorts? There used to be a Jurca Spit at my club back in the 1980s.
 
The Jurca Spitfire I am familiar with is full scale and is engineered for the Allison V-1710. If flies VERY well and is a big hit when it attends our annual airshow. It cruises right where the real Spitfire does and is a bit more maneuverable.
 
Ah, right. Shows how out of touch I am since having to stop flying! I've just had a quick search and found the one you mean - heck of a change from his original 'home built', small design, and looks almost like the real thing.
 
The only problem I can see with a metal Mossie is the surface finish. Until you see a Mossie in the flesh next to a contemporary metal a/c you dont realise how smooth the finish is. No joints (or very few) no rivets, no rippling between frames, no panel gaps its one smooth whole almost looking like it has been extruded from a giant machine. DH werent very experienced with metal construction so there design team might have erred on the side of caution when doing a design excersise for a metal Mossie.
 

I don't believe they had adequate resins which could work with alloy , when I built my race cars I had a major problem identifying glues that worked with different materials, I think it was Redux we ended up using, aluminium is a bit of a bitch to bond to!
 
Was it a 'wood' type glue used on the Mosquitos? Or was it an epoxy resin? Reason being is that epoxy will bond anything to anything.
 
Epoxy resin won't bond at all on polietylene or over waxed surfaces.......otherwise how could you do to extract something from a mold?
 
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