Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military
From: whh@PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: The Dam Busters (was Re: Strategic targets in Iraq)
Message-ID: <1990Sep27.031650.7585@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 27 Sep 90 03:16:50 GMT
References: <1990Sep11.024301.14007@cbnews.att.com> <1990Sep13.011955.16148@cbnews.att.com> <1990Sep24.001826.24186@cbnews.att.com>
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From: whh@PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt)

In article <1990Sep24.001826.24186@cbnews.att.com>  writes:
>Nope, Balsawood.  It is a very light but strong wood.  The Mosquito
>like many other British and German planes in (early) WWII started
>as racing aircraft. Thus the use of bals wood. The Mosquito was
>extremely fast and could run in with its bombs and then outrun
>any pursuing Mesherschmidts.

The Mosquito was designed from scratch to be a light, very fast, bomber.
The original desinged load was 1000 lbs. By the end of WW2, the load was
up to 4000.  (Compare to the Lancaster that started at 4000 and ended--
in some cases--at 22,000 lbs.)

deHaviland was used to working in wood--so that's how the designed the
Mosquito.  When the prototype was demonstrated, the test pilot did
aerobatics in it--and the RAF observer told deHaviland to build an initial
order of 50--20 as bomber, 20 as fighters and 10 as photo-recon.

The two strangest variants I know of were the Carrier version--with folding
wings (the Mosquito was the first two-engined type to *land* on a Carrier-
and the anit-shipping version--with a 53-mm cannon (a modified British Army 
6-pounder anti-tank gun).  The Carrier version (which was never actually 
used that way) planes were later refitted with fixed wings and sold to
Israel.  The Israelis used mixed forces of Mosquitos and Mustangs in
1956--probably one of the most effective (and certainly the fastest)
combined air units ever flown (at least in concept).

	--Hal

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