de Havilland designs before the Mosquito

From ‘RAF Bomber Command and its aircraft 1936-1940’ by James Goulding and Philip Moyes.

Powered by four de Havilland Gipsy Twelve Srs I engines of 525hp each, the Albatross could carry a 6,000lb payload over a range that would include Berlin and back, cruising at 210mph. With such as performance a military version of the aircraft seemed to have possibilities and a project was drafted which would conform to Specification P.13/36. This was projected with two Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, but this bomber was underpowered and not able to meet the specification requirements. With Merlins the top speed would have been 260mph and it could carry 4,000lb of bombs at 230mph for 1,500 miles. To meet the specification, double the power was needed, which was not surprising as all the other P.13/36 designs projected were mostly using two Vultures, with Sabres, Centaurus or Hercules as alternative power plants.

In August 1938 a revised twin-Merlin bomber was projected – again of similar size to the Albatross – but it too proved unsatisfactory.

Towards the end of 1938 de haviland proposed a different bomber layout, no longer an adaptation of the Albatross design but a smaller, three-seat twin-Merlin design with a top speed of 300mph and a cruising speed of 268mph. This design had fixed forward armament and manually operated guns. All-wood construction was again suggested.

Now given the Albatross had a 105ft wingspan, double the power should have been easy even reduced to no mare than 100ft (was there a restriction on wingspan for the P.13/36 designs – 80ft initially rings a bell) – four Merlins but can the wing take it??

The P.13/36 was originally wanting the possibility of catapult launch and the ability to carry four later two torpedoes internally, what does that suggest for the strength and layout of this de Haviland design?

If faced with official disinterest, what would be de Haviland’s ability to make a ‘racing’ Mosquito earlier conveniently of the size, weight and shape as the actual historical Mosquito to prove their theory?