Warbird Information Exchange

That one had me scratching my head for a while too. I think it's the Nanchang mentioned earlier in the thread.

-Tim

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Keep 'em Flying.

It's reminiscent of an SBD, but it's definitely NOT that. It does look like it has two, separate cockpits though.

That's a Cj-6 in the back.

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Nothing holds like a good, tight crossthread.

Thanks, mystery solved!

TriangleP,

Some excerpts of my 3,300 word article on Jasper.

Jas was posted, on December 28, to RCAF No. 418 (Eskimo) Intruder Squadron which was based at RAF Air Station Ford in West Sussex. There he was paired with his Navigator/Observer FL Oscar Archibald Joseph "Archie" Martin from Ottawa, Ontario. As a team, they flew Mosquito Mk. VI's on "Intruder", "Flower" and "Day Ranger" missions in the European Theatre of Operation (ETO). Their personal Mosquito coded TH-K was named "Earthquake McGoon". All of 418's aircraft were illustrated with Al Capps' "Li'l Abner" cartoon characters. The Squadron's Mk. VI's were the Fighter-Bomber (FB) variant. In addition to the nose armament of 4 x .303" Colt-Browning machine guns with 500 rounds per gun and 4 x Hispano-Suiza 20-mm cannons with 155 rounds per gun, the aircraft could carry two 500 pound bombs in its rear bomb bay and a 500 pounder under each wing. With long-range fuel tanks installed in the forward bomb bay and two 100 gallon slipper tanks underwing, the normal radius of action was extended from 1,300 to 1,870 miles. Powered by two 1,460 shaft horsepower Rolls-Royce Merlin -21 or -25 engines, its top speed at sea level was 390 miles per hour, some 89 miles per hour faster than the Douglas Mk. III Bostons the type replaced. Worldwide, Mosquito production totaled 7,781 airframes. Britian built 6,435, Canada 1,134 and Australia 212. The most numerous model produced was the Mk. VI - 2,584 units being constructed.

In February, 1944, Jas was asked why he had not transferred to an American Military Service after the U.S. joined the War effort on December 8, 1941. He replied; "There was no pressure and no reason to transfer. Some of the people I trained with, who did go back, were treated as stepchildren and were given lousy assignments. I decided to stay where I was and fly my Mossie".

On July 5, 1944, word came down from RAF Fighter Command's 11 Group that any V-1 shot down over the sea would count the same as an enemy aircraft destroyed in the air. One brought down over land, would only count as half a victory. The difference being that a Buzz Bomb containing 1,870 pounds of Amatol-39 high explosive that could be detonated over water, was far less dangerous to life and property than one exploded on or over land. The Military code name for the Fieseler Fi-103 V-1 Flying Bomb was "Diver". It was a primitive example of a weapon that would come to be known years later as the Cruise Missile. Altogether, 9,521 V-1's were fired at England and 2,448 were launched against Belgium. The cost in lives was staggering - 22,448 casualties, most of whom were civilians.

With 4 airplanes and 3 V-1's, he was an Ace.

Cheers,

Tom Walsh.

On the contary, there's at least 2 maybe 3 museum examples that are sound enough to fly, 2 examples have been retired to indoor exhibits after last flying in the late 1960's. It's the choice of their custodians that means they are grounded, not because they are not sound enough to fly.
Mosquito Aircraft Musuem's B.35 TA634 and the Norweigian National Aviation Museum's T.3 TW117, which had been a long time resident at the RAFM Hendon until being swopped.
Also, the B.35 RS709 at Dayton, having being flown over the Atlantic from the UK back in the early 1980's.

The B.35, TH998 in storage at Silver Hill is probably sound enough as well, given the conditions it been kept in all these years.



If there's that much of a question mark of the airframe then it would be more prudent to not fly it at all.

I would have thought that the airframe would have been subjected to the sort of tests devised by the MAM on B.35 TA634 some years back.
Maybe Bruce can comment on that....?

A few notes on Mossies.

The tests that we had done on TA634 can be easily replicated elsewhere. They showed, essentially that she was in good condition, but could not fly again without significant replacement of structure. Our licensed engineer then spent a couple of years learning the Mosquito in depth, and concluded that he wouldnt fly an aeroplane on original wood and glue - however well preserved it was. He is strongly of the opinion that KA114 is the way to go if you want to fly a Mossie.

There is plenty of documentation available - you just need to know where to look. I got hold of a copy of the Swedish illustrated parts catalogue, and passed it around interested parties. Its absolutely invaluable. All of the RAF docs are available at a price from the RAF Museum amongst others.

Parts are not as common as P51, but they are around - its a question of how hard you look. I could put my hand on a lot of stuff quite easily.

You may be interested to know that the volunteers at the de Havilland Museum recently dismantled the original prototype for conservation works. That too is in very good order, and its quite amazing how similar it is to the later production aircraft. They really got it right first time!



Bruce

This thread is very interesting and has gotten me thinking. What about the Rolls Royce T.3 RR299 that was tragicaly lost in 1995. Was this example ever restored? Or was it flying with it's original wood & glue throughout it's life?

I do remember that in '93 Historic Flying recovered it in all new fabric and gave it a new paint job. I'd be very interested in hearing from anyone who might be in the know.

Pete

Hi Pete,
As far as I recall, RR299 / G-ASKH was never rebuilt, but had original wood and glue, not restored, and you are right that shortly before her tragic loss (with crew) she had been refabriced. It had been carefully looked after and hangared.

I've just done a blog post on RR299, including a few images and a link to a good video at North Weald.



It's here: http://vintageaeroplanewriter.blogspot. ... rr299.html

(By the way - British Aerospace BAe (as they were then, IIRC) owned G-ASKH, not RR, and it carried their logo discretely on the side of the nose.)

Regards,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Since the wood and glue subject is all time related it is worth noting that RR299's last flight was 15 years ago.
Chris...

Mosquitoes were also glued with two different glues, initially organic casein glue, and later this was replaced by "Aerolite", a synthetic urea-formaldehyde adhesive. IIRC related to my conversations with people restoring or maintaining Mosquitoes, the casein glue, if properly used and then protected has a potential long and effective life, whereas the urea-formaldehyde will crystallise and lose its mechanical strength. We have more effective modern adhesives than either now, and at least one (non-airworthy) Mosquito rebuild is using West System epoxy.

I'm no expert or engineer, but in high-performance aero engineering there seem to be more presumptions of the inadequacies of wood and wooden construction than one can credit; because it's not a common material for 300mph+ aircraft, all sorts of strange problems and potential failures are attributed to the material and thus construction using it. Wood itself, provided it is properly maintained will last for an awful long time, and keep much of its mechanical strength. Specific aero engineering details are beyond my ken, but it's worth considering how widely, long and successfully humans have used wood. At lower speeds, all our oldest surviving aircraft are of primarily wooden construction, and used under lower structural demands than W.W.II era machines, again, provided they've been properly maintained, are structurally sound in preservation and in some cases flight.

Just some thoughts,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Umm.....yes, considering the plane flew constantly for 50 years as far as I know. So I'm considering that BAe inspected this airplane regularly, and found to their satisfaction that the condition of the wood/glue was not an issue. They did however decide to spring for a fabric recovering in the early 90's.

So the question becomes is the fear of delamination really an issue? IS the fact that an airplane is flown regularly beneficial to one that's been kept in storage? Does an extra 10-12 years make a difference to a well maintained airplane?

Pete
(JDK...thanks for the correction! I had RR on the brain. IIRC they owned a Spit XIV that was also tragically lost, and this is what I associated to.)

First question after 'what care it had' would be 'what glue' - see above. My unqualified impression is that the wood, provided the aircraft was cared for properly, wouldn't be a factor for some time further. However that, I guess depends on any deterioration due to use; Great War, W.W.II and modern high performance aircraft having exponentially greater stress and loads being applied to their structures. I'd like a qualified aero-engineer's view on that, but there are few aero engineers who actually know wood at this level of use; most don't, but that doesn't stop them giving out inaccurate data. (That's a journalist's job!)

(Mosquitoes were built from balsa, ply and spruce.)

Wood is (IMHO) consistently under estimated and dismissed as a high tech building material in the 21C due to engineering ignorance. It remains unique as a composite and remarkably adaptable material, the issue is current 'expert' understanding and education. It is notable wood has regained some ground in architectural use for higher status and load bearing structures.

Remember our oldest surviving aircraft, and oldest forms of transport are wooden; and the only older buildings than our wooden ones we have are mud or stone - neither recommended for aeronautical use.

Indeed - Just to elaborate - Spitfire Mk.XIV RM689 G-ALGT (was painted as RM619 for a period) was used by Rolls Royce as a chase 'plane and then later for display flying, before being tragically lost with the pilot in a mismeasured looping manoeuvre at an airshow. RR then later bought a PR.19 / XIX PS853 / G-RRGN and currently display that, and also have the remains of G-ALGT under rebuild as I write.

HTH!

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

The BAE Mosquito crashed one week after the TFC P-38, on July 21, 1996, not 1995.

JH

John H - Yes. One of the worst weeks I remember. Thankfully I didn't see either crash, but had talked to all three people briefly on the Legends weekend. A good friend was crew on the P-38, and understandably found it particularly tough. They'll not be forgotten.

Thanks TriangleP, all fair points. Again, my impression of most failures of wooden aircraft such as the Knute Rockne Fokker crash onwards have to do with very poor maintenance or failures of things like the glue structure. (The loss of confidence in wartime glues was the cause of the massive post-war (1950s?) cull of British wooden aircraft.)

Generally the wood in wooden aircraft seems to be rarely the failure-point, provided it hasn't been abused.

That testing would be one route, but I doubt there's the finance driven by need for it. There may be views and data from the lightplane, replica, and GA wooden aircraft groups, but by and large, my impression is that the loadings and structural expectations on the wood in these machines is significantly less than in something like a Mosquito, as well as being a different actual structural construction method.

Regards,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com