MOSQUITOES OF R.A.F.

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23996, 10 July 1943, Page 4

MOSQUITOES OF R.A.F.

PERFORMANCE AND CONSTRUCTION LONDON, May 6. Several interesting facts may now be disclosed about the De H av ih anc i Mosquito, which, both as fighter and bomber, is playing such a conspicuous part in the activities of the Royal Air Force, says the aeronautical correspondent of “The Times.” It is a unique machine in many respects. Constructed of wood, at its best operational heights it is the fastest aircraft of any type in service with any air force; it represents a world record in the time taken from drawing-board to active service against the enemy; it is the only first-line aircraft now in service which has been designed since the war started; and it is being made in many parts of Britain and in Canada. The maker’s design number for the Mosquito is D.H.98, and it is the first Do Havilland war aircraft to go into production since the D.H.9 and D.H.10 of 1918. The new machine was designed towards the end of 1939. the idea being to create round two RollsRoyce Merlin engines a small, clean bomber with useful range and bombload, which would be faster than contemporary fighters. The De Havilland Company was allowed by the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Aircraft Production to proceed with the design work free from an Air Ministry specification. Although the company was given several changes of instruction as to how the first few aircraft ordered were to be finished (which meant building and flying several fighter and bomber prototypes), the flight.trials began 11 months after design work had started, went straight through without a hitch, and the first Mosquitoes were engaged against the enemy 22 months after the start of designing. Credit for an outstanding aircraft belongs to the team headed by Captain Geoffrey De Havilland and comprising Mr C. C. Walker, the company’s chief engineer, Mr R. E. Bishop, chief designer, and Mr R. M. Clarkson, assistant-chief engineer and head of the aerodynamics department. To-day furniture and other woodworking factories, large and small, all over the country are busy turning out airframes for Mosquitoes. In Britain alone the De Havilland Company has scores of dispersed depots and some 400 subcontractors making components. The fuselage is built in two longitudinal sections, and fits together exactly as do the two sections of a toy Easter egg. The fuselage shell is made of a “sandwich” of two plywood layers, with a centre of balsa wood. The Mosquito is in service as a day and night bomber, as a long-range day fighter, and as an intruder. The basic fighter is armed with four 20mm. cannon and four 0.303 machine-guns all of which are mounted in the nose of the fuselage. The basic bomber, which carries no armament and relies for its safety on its great speed and manoeuvrability. has a bomb-load of 20001b and a fuel range which brings practically the whole of Germany within its reach. Finest Herd In the World Discussing wapiti and moose, Mr Ken Sutherland told the members of the Dunedin Rotary Club recently that wapiti, which were released in the West Coast Sounds more than 30 years ago, had developed so well, that for the last 15 years the herd had probably been the finest in the world. There war evidence lately of crossing with red deer, which would inevitably cause some deterioration of a section of the wapiti. The moose, which had also been released, had not done so well, and the expectation seemed to be that they would become extinct.