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Post by craig on Oct 20, 2012 11:35:47 GMT 12
Theres a guy in Gore who has a bit of an aviation museum (Gore Airforce museum 03 208 5354). He has a few bits off mossie (nose cone, tyres etc) Apparently it came from a airframe near Lumsden? Surely no mossie frames would have got this far South? In any case he claims most of his bits ended up with someone in Invercargill. Might be worth someone following up on
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Post by denysjones on Oct 20, 2012 19:13:15 GMT 12
Correct Craig a lot of Mossie stuff did end up with a Malcolm (?) MacDonald from down Invercargill.
He joined the RNZAF as a pilot trainee and a lot of his stuff ended up (somehow) in 6 Shed Wigram. He then was discharged as I understand for not making the grade. His stuff was then abandoned. We, Ferrymead, were contacted and we collected the bits which were some very munted centre sections and a few boxes of sundries. We salvaged the metal fittings off the centre sections but they were well past any real use.
Subsequently reports went around of two containers of Mossie stuff ex-Invercargil being shipped to the UK. I never heard of MacDonald again.
However on another tack (heaven help me age is confusing the memory here) but Warren Rintoul and I went to either Clinton or Milton on a Corsair hunt which proved a wild goose chase. But over a few beers in the pub with the local cop he said he'd show us a paddock just across the road where a couple of Mosquitos died and he knew the bits had gone to someone from Invercargill.
Needless to say the paddock was bare...string it all together as you wish.
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Post by agile on Oct 29, 2012 19:45:55 GMT 12
OK, so what we have been up to recently. The focus has been on structure repairs to bulkheads 6 & 7, which are the aftermost pair - they are about 1.5 ft apart, and I can testify to the fact that squashing yourself into this area on a hot day is not for the faint of heart. The fuselage either side of bulkhead 7 has rotted and smashed, so this has been cut back to the inner skin, and the stringer, balsa and outer ply replaced. Before: After: Before: After (the red is dope over the bits that are complete): Damage was also evident on the inside - I don't have a good before shot of this, but here is after, looking aft and upwards towards bulkhead 7. Bear in mind that every patch is feathered to 1:10 at the edges, as per the dH repair manual - bloody difficult on a curved surface! Getting the curve on the side is tricky, too. The core of bulkhead 6 had rotted at the join between the two halves, so that when all the rotted or dozy wood was removed, only the two paxoline outers remained. One funny little thing I found here - the photo below is looking up at the underside of bulkhead 6 (before I got started). Obviously when the craftsmen at Standard motors put the two halves of this fuse together, they didn't quite mate up at this bulkhead. Not to worry, they tacked on a strip of wood about 3mm thick (outlined in red) so that it wasn't obvious from the outside. The mismatch was a constant bother when making parts in this area. Below is a pic of all the bits involved in this single repair - obviosuly we tried to retain as much of the original structure as possible: And a pic of the nearly finished product: After that I needed to patch up the area of the forward fin attachment point, which had almost completely rotted away. Here is a shot of the work in progress, showing the myriad on new bits - all curved, almost all tapered or feathered into the original structure: And where it is at now - pardon the copius amounts of bog, which will sand down to almost nothing. The extensive use of bog is mostly to try to save the outer laminar of the ply, which is very fragile and responds to sanding by vanishing instantly: Another repair job was the ground power socket on the port side, before: During: After: We hope to have the entire starboard side covered by the end of summer. Here is the first piece of fabric work we have tried - one of the cannon doors:
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Post by John L on Oct 30, 2012 0:08:27 GMT 12
Great work - good to see you're all trying to fix up a nightmare using factory recomended procedures.......just imagine it's cannon damage...........
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Post by agile on Oct 30, 2012 7:26:33 GMT 12
Great work - good to see you're all trying to fix up a nightmare using factory recomended procedures.......just imagine it's cannon damage........... Certainly where we can we try to do it by the book, although the keener eyed will spot something very un-official in the finished ground power socket pic.
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Post by agile on May 31, 2015 11:14:33 GMT 12
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 31, 2015 11:21:51 GMT 12
Thanks for the update Alex!
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Post by Richard Wesley on Jun 20, 2015 19:47:10 GMT 12
Excellent to see Alex, thanks for sharing the photos and great works.
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Post by baz62 on Jun 27, 2015 16:32:55 GMT 12
Brilliant! Anthony and I will have to come out again and have another look.
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Post by denysjones on Jun 27, 2015 21:52:50 GMT 12
C'mon Baz you know the game...no voyeurs you gotta roll your sleeves up do equal time to oggle time!
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Post by baz62 on Jun 27, 2015 22:12:22 GMT 12
Ha ha always willing Denys
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Post by markrogers on Jul 2, 2015 20:56:24 GMT 12
Hi there, while perusing the forums at Key Publishing I came across this photo of HR339 parked by a C-47 at an unknown location somewhere in the tropics. I was quite surprised to see it - apparently it is not known to these guys on there that HR339 is still with us but in pieces. It may have been on it's way to NZ when this photo was snapped. Here's the link, second photo from the top down. forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?73872-Japanese-transport-IDEdit: they already know - should have read a bit further down! But an interesting find anyway so I thought I'd post on here.
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Post by davidd on Jul 2, 2015 21:58:58 GMT 12
Great picture of HR339! Probably taken at Rangoon or Singapore (which were some of the usual "stepping stones" taken by Mosquitos heading our way!) The fellow with the rifle slung over his shoulder looks to have an unusual cap and may be a native Malay guard, or some other local type who obviously had the backing of the powers that be at this airfield! HR339 came out to NZ in late 1947/early 1948, and was damaged at Wigram on 14/4/48 when being taxied by F/L M H Sims, a Canadian (possibly serving as a member of the RAF at the time) whilst being ferried south to Taieri - the starboard undercarriage unit broke through the grass airfield surface at Wigram. The damage was such that this aircraft spent the rest of its RNZAF life at Wigram before being sold in May 1953 along with other Mosquitos located at Taieri (6), Ohakea (2), and Woodbourne (7). It was one of the older Mosquito FB VIs obtained by the RNZAF and was unique in being the only one with a real wartime combat history with a NZ unit in the RAF - 487 Sqdn - commencing in November 1944! Although having the earliest serial numbers of any of the FB VIs, some of the PZ-prefixed aircraft were actually delivered to the RAF a few months previous to this. It was ferried out to NZ (or at least was delivered to NZ) by a F/L Bailey and a W/O Cattermole, possibly both members of the RAF. Seems it was stored with 10 MU at RAF Pershore from 8/5/47, and was despatched to RNZAF on 14/10/47. However, as it only arrived in NZ on 25/3/48, must have had some longish delays en route, although this would hardly have been particularly unusual with RNZAF Mosquitos on these long delivery flights. Pity that more of the C-47s in the line up of this photograph are not possible, but presume they are RAF aircraft - note that a number appears above the windscreen of the most visible one in the view. Edit! Have just referred back to the original photo, and see that the Dakotas/C--47s shown would all seem to belong to Malayan Airways, so aircraft in photo with Mosquito would quite likely be VR-SCN. Another point of interest to colour scheme sleuths and modellers is that HR339 was camouflaged in the not-so-well known (for Mosquitos) dark earth and dark green, with the undersurfaces all sprayed in what appears to be a shade of Mediterranean blue. David D
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Post by ZacYates on Dec 3, 2015 11:05:12 GMT 12
I'm interested to see (belatedly) David D's comment about colours above. I'd like to build this Mosquito as a 1/72 model as she will appear when completed. Back in Post #1 Agile suggested she could be presented and displayed as HR339 as opposed to NZ2382. I know it's still far too soon to ask for certain, but what colour scheme is Ferrymead thinking of applying to the completed aircraft?
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Post by agile on Dec 4, 2015 6:31:35 GMT 12
Definitely HR339 as she would have appeared during service with 487 Squadron, rather than NZ2382. As to what this would look like, as alluded to by David above there is some mystery surrounding this as all the bits we have are painted dark earth/dark green and there is no sign of green/grey paint or squadron codes on the surviving fuselage section of 339 (ie under the current outer coat of paint). We live in hope that a picture of 339 in wartime trim may yet emerge as with the photo noted by David above.
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Post by ZacYates on Dec 4, 2015 9:03:11 GMT 12
No worries, thanks a bunch for getting back to me so quickly! I'd like to make a series of preserved Kiwi Mossies and, after the work going into this one, I could hardly not include HR339. Thanks again, and keep up the great work. It's great to read updates when travelling to see her in person isn't an option.
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