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Title: Mosquito gets finishing touches
Source:
News 3 (New Zealand)
URL Source: http://www.3news.co.nz/Mosquito-get ... /articleID/264669/Default.aspx
Published: Aug 9, 2012
Author: Samantha Hayes
Post Date: 2012-08-09 11:48:21 by X-15
Keywords: aviation, Mosquito, WWII
Views: 314
Comments: 2
After seven years of painstaking restoration, the finishing touches are going on an old World War II bomber near Auckland. The combat aircraft is special because its frame was made almost entirely from wood, and when it first entered production in 1941 it was the fastest operational aircraft in the world. Revealed at Ardmore airport, the De Havilland Mosquito FB26 is the only one of its kind to be restored for flight, but it's not finished yet. A team of eight warbird engineers are in top gear to get the fighter bomber ready to take to the skies next month, an event which will mark the 70th anniversary of the first flight of a Canadian-built Mosquito and commemorate the New Zealand pilots who flew them. “There are a lot of other WWII aeroplanes around you can look at, but these guys remember the Mosquito so fondly - it's going to be fantastic to give them the opportunity to see it again,” says director of Av Specs Warren Denholm. It has taken seven years and approximately $3 million to restore the plane up to this point, a tab picked up by a wealthy American collector. When Av Specs began the project they only had old photos to work with in what is called a 'basket case restoration'. “It was so had it you could have fitted it in a basket and carried it home,” says Mr Denholm. Nicknamed the 'Wooden Wonder', the plane is made almost entirely from wood which had rotted and had to be re-crafted, but all the metal components are original, including the twin Rolls Royce Merlin engines. “We've done all the metal bits, all the fittings and fixtures that bolt on to the woodwork and the systems that make it fly,” says aircraft engineer Paul Levitt. Over the next month the Mosquito will be painted with RAF green and grey camouflage, and it'll wear the markings of 487 Squadron, a famous New Zealand squadron that served in WWII. Additional source: www.warbirdrestoration.co.nz/current.html#ka114 Poster Comment: Keep 'em flying!!
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#1. To: All (#0)
"The Kiwi de Havilland Mosquito KA114 departs on a 30 minute sortie from Auckland International Airport on its second test flight on 27th September 2012, this time with Keith Skilling at the controls." "The De Havilland Mosquito. After a rebuild by Avspecs Ltd Ardmore that took several years. Here it flies at its first public flight at Ardmore Airfield. Auckland. New Zealand." Done and flying!!!
-Alex Kurtagic
#2. To: All (#0)
While we were involved in the election, Av Specs put up another Mosquito: http://www.warbirdsnews.com/warbird-restorations/de-havilland-mosquito-tv959- arrived-flying-heritage-collection.html Yesterday, another jewel for Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection arrived at the organization’s Paine Field facility in Everett, Washington, after a long journey by sea from New Zealand. Museum staff carefully unloaded the de Havilland Mosquito T Mk.III, RAF serial TV959, from her 40ft container and rolled her inside for eventual reassembly. This is the second Mosquito that AVspecs Ltd. has restored to pristine flying condition at their base in Auckland, New Zealand. The other flyer is Jerry Yagen’s FB.Mk.26 KA114, but there are several more examples in the works. The Flying Heritage Collection’s newly-restored Mosquito rolled off deHavilland’s production line in Leavesden, England in mid-1945 as a training variant of the famous WWII, multi-role combat aircraft. She was too late to see wartime service, joining the Royal Air Force in August that year. TV959 survived to be among the last handful of the type to retire from RAF service in 1963. Her only real claim to fame, other than being a rare survivor of the breed, is that she took part in the classic, though wholly fictitious, 1964 war film, 633 Squadron, appearing as MM398 (coded HT-P) during cockpit and ground sequences. The Imperial War Museum acquired TV959 following filming, and displayed the Mosquito for many years at their facility in Lambeth, London, but sadly not before sawing off her starboard wing so that she would fit the exhibit hall! With another Mosquito in their collection (also a veteran of 633 Squadron), IWM sold her on to The Fighter Collection at Duxford in the early 1990s, who in turn sold her to Paul Allen in 2003. TV959 arrived at AVspecs in May, 2011, and they made fast work on getting the ‘wooden wonder’ flying again. She made her first post-rebuild flight this past September, and once the requisite hours were on the clock, the restoration team disassembled the warbird for transport to the USA. Whilst TV959 retains some of her trainer variant features, Paul Allen had AVspecs configure her more like a wartime FB.Mk.VI fighter-bomber. The currently silver-doped airframe, left as such in tribute to the similarly painted, post-war RNZAF examples, will gain a suitable WWII camouflage scheme before too long. AUCKLAND NEW ZEALAND September 29, 2016. A restored de Havilland Mosquito completed its second test flight today at Ardmore Airport with Keith Skilling and Dave Phillips at the controls for a very successful flight. This is the second Mosquito restored by Avspecs Limited and is one of three airworthy in the whole World.
-Alex Kurtagic
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