Though Mosquitos flew thousands of routine bombing missions, their most popular exploits were low-altitude, pinpoint hit-and-run raids, since the British media exploited them to the fullest. The RAF smartly sent special camera planes along on some of the sorties to film the action. The press loved the fact that the Jutland raiders went in so low that one crew saw a Danish farmer in a field, saluting as they wailed by, and that during the Copenhagen raid the bombers literally flew down boulevards and banked into side streets.
Often the damage caused was light and collateral civilian losses were high—27 nuns and 87 children were killed in a Catholic school during the Copenhagen raid—but the effect on public morale was extreme.
Nobody was safe from the Wooden Wonder. And why, exactly, was it wooden? Because furniture factories, cabinetmakers, luxury-auto coachbuilders and piano makers could quickly be turned into subcontractors. Because wood, particularly when covered with a thin layer of doped fabric, makes a remarkably smooth, drag-cheating surface free of rivets and seams. And battle damage could be repaired relatively easily in the field. In April , U. A number of Mosquitos fell to Hes and Mes in particular, perhaps because of the radar reflectivity of the big Merlin engines and their huge prop discs.
HistoryNet Archives. Both wood and modern composites consist of tiny fibers suspended in a cellulose or polymer carrier—ingredients that by themselves have little strength but when combined create an extremely strong matrix.
Today composites are bonded under heat and pressure, but wood requires plain old gluing. In the Pacific theater, some Mosquito glues turned cheesy, and upper wing skins debonded from the main spar. The solution turned out to be two-part urea-formaldehyde glue, which de Havilland began using in the spring of When the two were clamped together, in some places with the simple pressure of tiny brass brads, a waterproof bond stronger than the wood itself was formed.
Mosquitos were internally coated with traditional marine varnishes, not nearly as waterproof as modern polyurethane coatings. So there were cases of Mosquito structural failures caused by simple wood rot—some among de Havilland of Canada—built airplanes, which were sometimes found to suffer from poorer workmanship and lower quality-control standards. A few Mosquitos—a total of —were also built in Australia, but that country had even bigger problems, with only a tiny cadre of aviation engineers and technicians to depend upon.
The first 50 Australian-built Mosquito wings were so badly glued they had to be rebuilt. The Mosquito was not an easy airplane to fly. The much-maligned B Marauder had a Vmc of about mph. Below Vmc, power had to quickly be retarded on the good engine to keep the airplane from rolling, and this meant a loaded Mosquito could no longer maintain altitude. As cynics have said, the only reason to have two engines on a piston twin is so the good one can take you to the scene of the accident.
When their mounts were fully gassed up and carrying a 4,pound blockbuster, Mosquito pilots learned to ignore normal liftoff speed and instead keep the airplane on the runway no matter how long it was and pull up when they were just yards or so from the end. The effect on yaw of the long, powerful outthrust engines was substantial. Not a natural process. A radar housed in its bulbous nose, the Mosquito served as a potent night fighter. RAF Mosquito pilots were typically selected for their airmanship and experience, and they handled their Mosquitos with elite talent.
Granted, many of the crashes were due to mechanical problems. The F-8 program was a debacle, and in September it was canceled.
It had been championed by Lt. With the Merlin 61 engine its usability has yet to be proven. Wright Field tested a Mosquito Mk.
It was tail-heavy and unstable longitudinally during landing approach, especially with full fuselage tanks and center of gravity located near the aft limit, and rather precarious for inexperienced pilots to land in this condition. Intentional spinning is NOT permitted. At high speeds violent use and reversal of the rudder at large angles of yaw are to be avoided…. The Americans purchased a number of Mosquitos to operate as fast photoreconnaissance aircraft.
This one served with the 25th Bomb Group. Plywood ribs and stringers braced the gaps between the spars with space left over for fuel tanks and engine and flight controls. Plywood ribs and skins also formed the wing leading edges and flaps but de Havilland framed-up the ailerons from aluminum alloy and covered them with fabric.
Sheet metal skins enclosed the engines and metal doors closed over the main wheel wells when the pilot retracted the landing gear. To cover the wing structure and add strength, de Havilland woodworkers built two top wing skins and one bottom skin using birch plywood. The top skins had to carry the heaviest load so the designers also beefed them up with birch or Douglas fir stringers cut into fine strips and glued and screwed between the two skins.
The bottom skin was also reinforced with stringers. Together the top and bottom skins multiplied the strength of the internal spars and ribs. A Mosquito wing could withstand rigorous combat maneuvering at high G-loads when the airplane often carried thousands of additional pounds of fuel and weapons. To maintain strength, trim weight, and speed fabrication time, the entire wing was finished as a single piece, wingtip to wingtip, with no break where the wing bisected the fuselage.
A finished and painted wing was light and strong with a smooth surface unblemished by drag-inducing nail or rivet heads. De Havilland engineers and technicians used generally the same techniques to build the Comet, Albatross, and Mosquito wings out of wood and plywood. When they designed and built the fuselage, however, they copied the methods and materials employed to build the Albatross fuselage. This airliner was the product of the brilliant mind of Arthur E.
Hagg, de Havilland's Chief Draftsman in He left the company that same year but his ideas lived on in the Mosquito. Hagg created a light, strong, very streamlined structure by sandwiching 9.
As the glue cured, metal clamps held the skin layers tight to the mold. Technicians finished the edge of each half of the fuselage with male and female wedge joints as fitters attached wiring and other equipment to the inner walls.
Final fuselage assembly was reminiscent of a typical plastic model airplane kit as the two halves were glued and screwed together. Fabricators completed the final step in building the fuselage when they covered it with Mandapolam. To build the empennage, workers framed the rudder and elevator out of aluminum and covered them with fabric but they built the vertical and horizontal stabilizers from wood. Although the materials are different, Hagg's composite sandwich construction material is similar to the foam and fiberglass composite sandwich developed by Burt Rutan during the s.
Rutan revolutionized the design and construction of homebuilt aircraft when he marketed kits and plans to build the Rutan VariEze see NASM collection. The first Mosquito prototype flew on November 24, Flight trials revealed only minor development problems and de Havilland finished twenty production aircraft before ended. A photo-reconnaissance D.
Bomber and fighter versions began operating in early and Mosquitoes soon swept across the length and breadth of Western Europe. As a bomber, the Mosquito was fast enough to excel at precision attacks against heavily defended targets.
Courageous crews often flew these raids at altitudes of meters feet. Flying this type of raid in a single-engine airplane would border on suicide but the Mosquito's twin Merlins doubled the crew's chances of surviving engine failure. Nonetheless, on numerous occasions, anti-aircraft gunfire or patrolling German fighters splintered Mosquito airframes. Men of No. Four crews flew their Mosquito B. IV bombers a roundtrip total of 1, kilometers 1, miles and the mission lasted four hours and 45 minutes.
A BBC news broadcast that followed this raid marked the first official confirmation that the Mosquito existed. Van Vlymen's account illustrates the dangers routinely faced by men operating high-performance aircraft during wartime. After volunteering for the RAF in , van Vlymen became a certified airframe mechanic.
In , Mosquitoes built at the Hatfield factory began "piling up waiting for their test flight which de Havilland was unable to perform quickly enough. So large numbers were sent to Henlow for us to pass as serviceable. It was getting out of the Mosquito that was the problem.
We were testing the fighter version. The pilot could jettison the panel above his head and then somehow get out, probably breaking his back in doing so, there was no such thing as an ejector-seat in those days.
For me in the Navigators seat I had to jettison the side door and dive out head first, right into the propeller, so it was first necessary to feather the prop, an action that took several seconds that seemed like an age! The Air Ministry still felt gun turrets were needed to use the Mosquito, as it was now known, as a bomber.
It was the need for fighters during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz which kept the project alive. A Mosquito with mock gun turrets was tested, but the aerodynamic drag resulted in a much-reduced speed.
In May , the first bombing raids were carried out which proved to be highly successful after which the RAF and the Air Ministry relented and embraced the Mosquito.
The Mosquito bomber not only proved to be fast, it was able to carry four lb. They later repeated this feat against several targets, such as Amiens prison, which enabled the liberation of French Resistance fighters. This name hid the fact that it was a massive 4, lb. It did not resemble a bomb, but had a cut-off cylindrical shape. Another unusual load was the Highball bouncing bomb, a smaller version of the Upkeep bomb used by the famous Dambusters.
Finally, the Mosquito could drop brightly coloured flares on targets, enabling the main heavy bomber force Lancasters and Halifaxes to hit an otherwise blacked out target with much greater accuracy. The Mosquito NF Mk. II was a night fighter, equipped with on-board radar and entered Home Defence service in August Due to its excellent radar, high speed and powerful armament of eight guns, it was successful in intercepting German bomber aircraft. When more aircraft became available, the Mosquito escorted RAF bombers over Germany, actively hunting German night fighters.
Photo reconnaissance was equally successful. Able to fly at high altitude and at great speed, the unarmed Mosquito could penetrate deep into German airspace with little risk of being intercepted. The penultimate recon version was the PR Mk 34, optimised for long range flight in the Pacific.
With a full fuel load its range was 3, miles and its maximum speed was mph, faster than any aircraft in the Japanese inventory. Beside these three versions, several more versions were developed. The Mosquito FB Mk.
0コメント