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Old 6th Jul 2015, 09:49
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A and C
 
Join Date: Jan 1999
Location: north of barlu
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Not for the tropics

As Gee Ram says the wooden construction did not stand up well to being left in the open in tropical conditions, recently I looked at a light aircraft was of more or less the same type of construction as the Mossie, after two years outside storage you could put your fist through the main spar as it had the strength of wet cardboard, IMO glue failure was not usually a Mossie problem as it is the wood that seems to fail first when using Aerolite & aerodux glues, glue failure was a common problem with earlier glues that aircraft such as the Magister employed.

The aircraft was a write off but the fuselage is now in service with an air cadet unit as the basis for a flight simulator.

Returning to the subject I think that the only major error during ww2 was the balance between the numbers of Mossies and the four engine types. More Mossies and less four engine aircraft would have reduced the appalling crew loss rate but the four engine types could do jobs that the Mossie could not and so there was a large requirement for these.
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