“My Plan is to Fly This Mosquito…Back to Where it was Born All Those Years Ago”
It now calls a big shed in Drury home and waits expectantly, gathered in minutely catalogued sections of wood, metal fittings and dozens of plans. The airframe, fuselage and wing sections are taking shape on its painstaking way home. It’s a rare warbird, Mosquito NZ2308, born in Bankstown, Australia as FB MK40, A52-20, then converted toT43 status as A52-1054. It was one of four purchased by the RNZAF in June 1947 and flown across the Tasman in four hours by decorated WWII flying ace Wing Commander Johnny Checketts. Most of RNZAF’s Mosquitos subsequently ended up reduced to a pile of ashes, but this one miraculously survived and is being nursed back to life, thanks to 76 year old Glyn Powell, a man with a vision - and a huge amount of patience.
The Mosquito played a pivotal role in the air battles of WWII, flying the allies toward victory as the fastest, most manoeverable twin engine aircraft in the skies from 1940. Sometimes termed the “wooden wonder,” they were made from balsa wood, 3 ply “and a pot of glue.” The Mosquito almost never made it to production, bogged down by negatives in the British airforce hierarchy. Designer de Havilland had a lot of experience building wooden planes and knew that the Mosquito would be useful, so he went ahead anyway to build three prototypes.
“Once they saw them perform, they couldn’t get enough of them and between 20 and 30 a week were churned out of carpenters’ shops in England, Canada and Australia,” says Glyn. “It’s quite an aircraft. When it first flew, mouths dropped open.”
The Mosquito had excellent long range capability, up to 9 hours for the later recon. marks, they flew all over Europe at 35000 ft completely unarmed. It was ideal for reconnaissance and its performance was outstanding. It was faster than a Spitfire, with over 400mph top speed, too fast for enemy pilots to catch. Until then, if planes lost an engine, they were had it. The Mosquito had two Rolls Royce Merlin motors, with just two bolts and two nuts holding them in position. The plane stood up to all sorts of punishment, far more than a metal aircraft would. The bombers dropped 1000s of tons of bombs on Berlin and had the lowest loss rate in Bomber Command.” No fewer than twenty-seven different versions of the Mosquito went into service during the war years, and some of the most spectacular operations of the air war stood to its credit. The Mosquito carried phenomenal loads over extremely long distances, performing feats out of all proportion to the specification originally envisaged by its designers. The Mosquito proved to be an outstanding warplane on every count.
Glyn started his formidable project to restore a flying Mosquito 20 years ago. A semi-retired electrical contractor with experience as a builder and in working with wood, when the project was first suggested, he thought: “It can’t be that hard. It’s wood. Now I know what’s involved!” The vision was there, but realising it turned out to be harder than Glyn first thought. “I was told by people who knew about these things that it was impossible to build one. They were nearly right. It certainly wasn’t easy. The fuselage of the Mosquito is built in two halves on wooden or concrete moulds – the only way to get the double curvature in the ply. The moulds had all been scrapped after production ceased in 1950, so I was faced with the problem of building them.
“I had to start from the original lofting data and with the help of Chris McMullen, a top boat builder, I lofted it out and built the moulds. They weren’t the problem, it was the totally accurate positioning of the bulkheads and numerous other parts, including the main wing pickup fittings in slots in the mould. I had to position them ‘in space’ and build the mould around them. The wooden mould made a difference to measurements from day to day, depending on atmospheric conditions. That’s why the Canadians first used concrete moulds. It took me most of 5 years on my own to build the two moulds, it was an enormous job. The main wing assy jig took six months to make and involved some very accurate engineering, especially with the drill plates for drilling the spars for the engine and undercarriage brackets, which must be absolutely precise. Together, the jigs took five years to make.”
Assembling the wooden airframe on Glyn’s Mosquito has taken three years so far and involves “mind boggling” accuracy, detail and tolerances. Glyn has studied thousands of drawings and other publications, reviving the whole construction system. The original glue used in the plane’s manufacture has been replaced by much stronger, waterproof epoxy glue, but all else follows original specifications. The wooden framework is made from Canadian spruce and European birch plywood. The whole wooden airframe is covered in a synthetic poly fibre ‘linen’ to protect the ply. “It’s an expensive project,” says Glyn.
Glyn keeps reminding himself “it’s all been done before.” Perhaps, but the Mosquitos made for the war effort had a big workforce behind them, each worker concentrating on their special area of expertise. Glyn got as far as he could on the restoration alone, but now has quite a team of paid and voluntary helpers. “One of the tasks involved included making the tank doors. After building up the main wing structure in the jig we tried a tank door from an original Australian built mosquito – it fitted perfectly in the wing.” Then there’s preparing thousands of metal parts. Glyn has to make those he can’t find, as well as making the tooling for the task. He has six containers full of metal parts, gathered over the years from all around the world.
“There are thousands and thousands of ‘bits.’ An original wing tip was found under a house in Sydney, there’s an original instrument panel and a seat. The original radio equipment weighs about a ton. We will be using modern radio equipment. Just overhauling the original plugs means thousands of hours of work. For an aircraft built ‘entirely of wood,’ you wouldn’t believe how many metal parts there are and we are still looking for any Mosquito parts – engine cowlings, spinners, radiators and lots of smaller items. Each one has to be cleaned up, inspected and NDT’d, repaired where necessary, the paper work written up and a serviceable tag attached. The reject rate is high, but most of these parts will be original and will form a large percentage of the completed aircraft.”
It may be a huge restoration, but it’s not impossible. Glyn has already sent his first fuselage off the moulds to the Mosquito Bomber Group in Windsor, Ontario, who are building a static Mosquito bom