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The OP states a "Mosquito-like bomber", no the Mosquito itself...
...that is built either from aluminium or wood.
It is good if they can use Packard Merlin, but V-1710 will do.
They can build, say, a wooden transport aircraft.
The OP states US as a producer, and the USA was in position to build a V-12 powered bomber already in 1940, if they founded they need one.
What does Mosquito like actually mean? How similar does it have to be to be Mosquito like.
Why I thought the year was important is teh Mosquito's first light was in November 1940, introduction 1941, and didn't get into wide spread service until 1942.
We could argue that several twin engined aircraft were Mosquito like but were simply not able to do some jobs as well as a Mosquito. I would think if we wanted to match the Mosquito then we want a Mosquito. I would argue use the mosquito until something better can be found or until the need no longer exists.
By the time some saw the merits of the Mosquito a lot of other planes were already being built and were already in existence.
I'd take 'Mosquito-like' to mean:
Small (less than 20,000 lbs loaded);
Long-range (combat radius of greater than 600 miles);
Fast, particularly at higher altitudes (say, 360 mph plus);
Two-man;
Twin-engine;
Un-armed.
The Canadian factory already has experienced people working on the Mosquito. It might be still easier to expand production there even with a labor shortage.
Like the USA Canada is not being bombed. It might even make sense to move some of the production people from Britain to Canada if there is a fear that Germany could ever attack production. Also I am sure it can be arranged if needed that US citizens could be hired to go work on Mosquito production.
I see nothing wrong with a Canadian Mosquito factory having 70% Canadians, 15% British, and 15% Americans working on planes in Canada.
I think to answer some of these questions we would need to build a production possibilities curve based on both capital (machines) and human inputs, as well as materials and try and guess at the relative merits of the items produced.
I just don't have the inputs nor the shape of the transferability curves.
Since they are already sunk costs and we would be trying to find best utility the utility will have to be calculated (well, best guess) at the margin.
Then you start getting into cost accounting issues - I'm convinced cost accountants are inherently evil, worse even than tax accountants, who are merely amoral.
Apologies to any cost/tax accountants on the board.
The liquid-cooled V-12s in use during WW2 were primarily developed for military use; later civil uses were largely on extemporized transport aircraft, like the Lancastrian. Conversely, while the first US radials were developed at to a USN contract, they soon completely replaced liquid-cooled engines in the commercial arena, where reliability, long life, and efficiency were of paramount importance. Considering that cooling drag is a significant factor in any piston engined aircraft, if the drag of a well-designed radial installation was as much worse as some people here seem to believe, they would not have driven liquid-cooled engines out of the commercial market. The V-12s would likely have survived if they could demonstrate significantly better sfcs, and they could not do that, either: radials, in cruise conditions had sfcs of about 0.38 to about 0.4, which is about as good as a spark ignition engine can get.
I think the primary reasons that radials get dissed so often are that the V-12 aircraft looked more streamlined and faster (probably more because "streamlined design," as in Raymond Loewy, was fashionable) than radial-engined aircraft and the P-51, which was probably the cleanest piston-engined fighter to see service had a V-12. With the exception of the P-51, which had Cd,0 about 15% below any other piston-engined fighter to see service, the demonstrated values of zero-lift drag (Cd,0) for all piston-engined fighters clustered between about 0.021 and about 0.025 with no significant difference between V-12 and radial engined aircraft.
Lets see, the A-26 is 5mph too slow to meet the speed standard but it is close. Well, speed according to Wiki.
It has enough range.
3 man crew.
Twin engine.
It is armed.
It almost has the speed, it has the range and twin engined.
It is too heavy.
I would say it has three out of six that are met or close enough.
Looks like an heavy armed Mosquito like to me by that definition.
I think if we need a true Mosquito like the best bet is a real Mosquito.
Well, its 2 out of 6, maybe 2.5. That's still a fail in my book.
Given that an empty A-26 weighs more than a Mosquito - even a very late war Mosquito - does loaded, has defensive guns and was primarily a low altitude attack platform, I think we can rule it out as merely a 'heavy armed Mosquito'. That's like arguing a Hawker Typhoon is merely a heavy Spitfire...
As a bomber, the Mosquito's primary defence was speed, with a secondary defence of altitude. The earliest bomber Mosquitoes were capable of around 365-385 mph, the later bomber Mosqutioes of 410-420 mph. The A-26, although very fast at low altitudes, has nothing like the speed or altitude performance to be a US-style Mosquito. Maybe if they'd turbocharded the engines.
The Invader's 22,000 ft ceiling is only 500 ft better than the altitude the Merlin 21 powered Mosquitoes made their best speed at, and 6-8,000 ft lower than the altitude the early Mosquitoes cruised at. Late war Mossies had a best speed altitude of about 25,000 to 28,000 ft and would cruise above 30,000 ft and more than 300 mph.
To be Mosquito-like, it needs similar properties and capabilities - thus, we need a light bomber, with a moderate bomb load, no defensive armament, good spped, good high altitude performance and good range.
Turbocharge the A-26, delete the turrets, widen the bomb bay for a cookie and then you'd have a Mosquito replacement. I feel that the only problem is that this sort of aircraft wouldn't be available in major numbers until mid-late 1943.
A re-worked DB-7/A-20 with V-1650-1s might be acceptable though, and available six t eight months earlier.
It's not the best idea to use high altitude performance as a reference, where a large part of the drag is induced. Try using an A-5 without outer wing guns, it's got at least a similar weight and armament.
Fact is that Focke Wulf estimated the the BMW installation on the A-9 to produce ~30% more drag than the Jumo 213A on the D-9 with radiators in minimum drag position. This mostly comes from cooling drag. However, the engine related drag is only 15% of the cd0, and therefore you're down to 4.5% engine related for the total. With radiator open, the total difference is less, and given that the other drag components should not change, engine drag is in the same ball park.
The Jumo 213E installation on the Ta 152H produced more drag than the engine installation on both A-9 and D-9. So, for generalisation, what do you want to use? The in-line that is better or the in-line that is just as good or the in-line that is worse?
The British built commercial airliners with in-lines, and unsuccessfully competed with US models. The Soviets built commercial air liners, and used radials. It's not even remotely true that all post war airlines operated WW2 leftover US junk and part of the reason the newly build US planes were as successful as they were is the choice of engine.
Boston III compared to Mosquito, according to British sources, the A-20 was about 20% draggier than a clean Mosquito, with about 10% being attributed to engine drag, surface finish and turrets each. Mosquito lost 10% in drag from unknown sources, hence the 20% difference in the end.
At the same time, two of the most modern British engine installations on Tempest V and Tempest II, are nearly completely equal in drag, as are engine installations on Fw 190A and Spitfire IX.
The liquid-cooled V-12s in use during WW2 were primarily developed for military use; later civil uses were largely on extemporized transport aircraft, like the Lancastrian. Conversely, while the first US radials were developed at to a USN contract, they soon completely replaced liquid-cooled engines in the commercial arena, where reliability, long life, and efficiency were of paramount importance. Considering that cooling drag is a significant factor in any piston engined aircraft, if the drag of a well-designed radial installation was as much worse as some people here seem to believe, they would not have driven liquid-cooled engines out of the commercial market. The V-12s would likely have survived if they could demonstrate significantly better sfcs, and they could not do that, either: radials, in cruise conditions had sfcs of about 0.38 to about 0.4, which is about as good as a spark ignition engine can get.
I think the primary reasons that radials get dissed so often are that the V-12 aircraft looked more streamlined and faster (probably more because "streamlined design," as in Raymond Loewy, was fashionable) than radial-engined aircraft and the P-51, which was probably the cleanest piston-engined fighter to see service had a V-12. With the exception of the P-51, which had Cd,0 about 15% below any other piston-engined fighter to see service, the demonstrated values of zero-lift drag (Cd,0) for all piston-engined fighters clustered between about 0.021 and about 0.025 with no significant difference between V-12 and radial engined aircraft.
Point of Order: even the earliest Mossie bombers did 380 minimum.