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So what is an Anopheles de Havillandus? Well, it's a bit of a play on words which refers to the DH-98 Mosquito fighter-bomber manufactured by de Havilland Aircraft Company and used by the air forces of 20 countries between 1941 and 1956.
By the start of WWII in 1939 aircraft and aviation technology had improved dramatically from the flimsy structures of the early 20th century that could barely fly. Aluminium had almost completely replaced wood, fabric and wire as the preferred material to construct aircraft. The power and performance had also improved dramatically from the 9 kW (12 hp) and maximum speed of 27 knots of the Wright Flyer to the 330 knot spitfire with its 1,096 kW (1,470 hp) 27 litre V12 Rolls Royce Merlin engine. So, as you can expect, the proposal by de Havilland Aircraft company for a light bomber constructed primarily from wood was treated with considerable scepticism and viewed as a technological step backwards.
At the time the consensus was that bombers needed to be highly armed and armored heavy multi-engine aircraft bristling with machine guns and carrying a crew of ten or more. The unarmed, unarmored, primarily wooden Mosquito with its crew of two was too radical for the military and did not receive initial approval or government funding leaving de Havilland to either scrap the project or fund the construction of the prototype themselves. Fortunately de Havilland had faith in the project and when the privately funded prototype revealed its performance government backing was quickly granted.
The Mosquito quickly gained approval, even from the most unexpected sources and Herman Göring probably summed it up best when he stated.
- In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that?
Indeed, what do you make of that?
 Prior to the outbreak of hostilities in 1939 de Havilland realized that in the event of all out war there would be serious difficulties both in the supply of aluminium and labour required to build aircraft constructed primarily from aluminium. On the other hand the highly skilled cabinet, furniture and piano makers would have little to do and finding a supply of timber would be considerably easier than aluminium.
The image on the right shows how the Mosquito was primarily constructed from a laminate of 9.5 mm (3/8") thick Ecuadorian balsa wood sandwiched between two layers of Canadian birch.
 The fuselage was constructed in two halves with the separate layers of the laminate being laid down inside concrete moulds. The installation of much of the internal structure, electrical wiring, control cables, hydraulic lines etcetera was made considerably easier by carrying out this task prior to the mating of the two halves.
Once the majority of the internal work on the fuselage and wings was completed the halves were joined together to form the two major sub assemblies of the fuselage and wings.
By breaking the aircraft up into sub a ssemblies as shown at right, it was possible to construct them in separate facilities. The finished sub assemblies could then be shipped to wherever the final assembly was to take place and mated to form an almost finished aircraft.
A cursory initial glance would give the impression that the Mosquito was a technological step backwards but this was not the case. In reality it was using many of the techniques that are currently used to construct aircraft from composites like carbon or glass fiber reinforced epoxies and aluminium alloy honeycomb laminates.
Whilst not a deliberate design consideration the primarily wooden construction made the mosquito very difficult to detect with the radar systems available at the time. As a result the Mosquito was really the first stealthy aircraft.
What did all this add up to? To give you some idea of what the Mosquito was capable of lets do a comparison with a few of the aircraft it flew with and against.
The result was a fighter bomber that could out perform many of the aircraft it was used against while having a capacity not that much smaller than some of the medium to heavy bombers.
Herman Göring often boasted that Berlin, Germany's capital, was safe from Allied bombers, so when British intelligence learned he was to address a parade in Berlin on 31st January 1943 commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Nazis coming to power the perfect opportunity to upset the German high command was too good to be ignored. A gaggle of three Mosquitoes from RAF 105 squadron bombed the assembly and seriously disrupted Göring's address. Later the same day a second gaggle of Mosquitoes attacked another rally further disrupting the celebrations. Needless to say the German High Command was not impressed and the raids seriously undermined German morale and the credibility of the High Command.
Mosquitoes also carried out numerous extremely low level bombing raids including several on Gestapo buildings that destroyed many of their records and freed prisoners. Nuisance raids like this caused considerable disruption to and annoyance to the German High Command earning the Mosquito the nick names "The Wooden Wonder" and "The Timber Terror"
Variants of the Mosquito were used for photo reconnaissance, night fighters, pathfinder aircraft and even a torpedo bomber with folding wings for aircraft carrier based operations. It was also used by BOAC as a cargo aircraft carrying high value cargoes and the occasional VIPs where a normal cargo or passenger aircraft ran the risk of being intercepted and shot down by enemy fighters. The mosquito was manufactured in England (5,007 aircraft), Canada (1,134 aircraft) and Australia (212 aircraft) and was in production for ten years between 1940 and 1950.
Unfortunately materials used in the laminates and the adhesives available when the Mosquitoes were constructed has severely limited their long term preservation and restoration with only a handful still existing.. The crash of Mosquito RR299 a T Mk III at Barton Aerodrome during an air show in which both crew members lost their lives, left no known airworthy Mosquitoes worldwide. There are, however, several projects under way to return several Mosquitoes to airworthy condition including a New Zealand project that is using new timber and adhesives to construct a new airframe and the Canadian Historic Aircraft Association project which is constructing a new Mosquito from scratch.
My lifelong interest in aircraft meant the news that the Mosquito Aircraft Association of Australia was restoring an ex Royal Australian Air Force aircraft A52-600 de Havilland DH-98 Mosquito PR Mk XVI definitely got my attention. Unfortunately the work is being carried out at the RAAF Museum Point Cook, Victoria, Australia, which is some 740 km from where I live so that pretty much meant being involved was impossible.
However, I have also had a life long interest in constructing models and it didn't take long for the two interests to combine within the tangled threads of thought within my somewhat unusual head. I soon found myself suggesting to my close family that a joint project to construct a flying model of the de Havilland Mosquito would be interesting, educating and entertaining. When I then raised the subject with other CR4 participants I found that there were others that found the subject interesting and before long the project started to gather speed and grow in size and complexity.
Ultimately the project is likely to take at least a couple of years and as the project progresses and I gather more information on the de Havilland DH-98 Mosquito I will be documenting within the expanded blog.
As usual you can read further by following these links.
The next thread on the Masu on Mozzies theme will be on the search for the plans and the decision of the specifications for the model.
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Re: MaSu on Mozzies: Anopheles de Havillandus
