Here is the July 06 report on our work on the Mosquito.

1. We have continued with work on the doors and fittings, and have finished shaping the wooden wedge for the drift sight door and glued this in place on the cockpit side wall. We have also made plywood blocks and installed the metal ferrules in the top of the cockpit entry door frame for the wiring loom retaining clips. We have also fabricated the top panel for the ultra violet light switch panel that was missing.

2. We have re-assembled the magneto switches and installed them into junction box “A” along with the switch guards and master switch. The prop feathering buttons have also been re-assembled and installed in this box along with the navigator’s cold air punker louver.

3. We have prepped and painted the inside of the 20mm canon doors and the bomb doors.

4. Allied with the work going on with the flaps, has been the refurbishment of the metal components. We have overhauled one pair of flap torque tubes and they are now painted to the primer stage. We are also sorting out the flap hinge castings which have been liberated from spare flap assemblies. Most have cleaned up OK, but a couple will need to be remade. The steels rib attachment brackets from within the flaps are all corroded beyond redemption, and we have cad drawn the profiles and are having new stainless stock laser cut. We have fabricated a tool for folding and drilling these plates.

5. Further to the flap fittings has been the liberation and overhaul of the wing attachment fittings. We have begun on the rear wing attachment brackets that bolt to the rear spar. These have been cleaned, grit blasted and crack tested and are now ready for new paint. There are numerous other wing attachment/landing gear attachment brackets that are in work also. The aileron centre hinge mount and bell crank assembly has also been started and new bearings sourced for the aileron hinges. The attachment fittings are in a lot of cases bolted to the spars and ribs along with a formed sheet metal load distribution plate, and some of these plates have been badly corroded where they are up against the wooden structure. We have sourced the replacement alloy for these and begun fabrication.

This month coming we will continue with the overhaul of the wing fittings.

Woodwork

The first part of the month has been devoted to completing some of the work in progress on the flaps. The nose ribs have now been completed, temporarily fitted to the spar and faired off. The outer end of the inner portion of the main rib has also been fitted and faired, this job made a little more difficult due to the lack of a drawing. the assembly has been pulled apart and stored away now that the ply has arrived for the wing spar.

Work has recommenced on the spar, with the fabrication of the spar webs from the newly arrived ply. The spar web in is a continuous section that boxes in the upper and lower booms and therefore has to be scarf joined from numerous pieces of 8" long ply to create the full 54' long web. In addition to the ply web, the spar is strengthened with spar caps that are fitted to the faces of the spar on the lower booms. These caps are made from numerous laminations of Ash and have to be scarf joined from clear lengths then laminated together to form a cap approx. one inch thick. The ash was cut into the thin laminations in the frame saw.

One of the more challenging aspects of the spar construction is the machining of the main spruce booms. Each boom has lightening sections machined into the inner edges between the rib attachment areas. These depressions vary in depth, width and length depending on where they are on the boom. A special spindle head has been built to machine out these areas and the front spar lower boom has been successfully machined.

Work has continued on the ribs now that the ply is in house. Number one rib has been boxed in, and the webs have been cut for the engine bay ribs.