Mosquito production in America WW2

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From what is on the net the Mosquito fuselage skin sandwich was laid up in halves on full-length male half-moulds then as you say.

No, it was much simpler than that.

The Mosquito fuselage was built in halves, fitted out in halves, and then assembled in a boxing up jig.

I suppose there was a time when the Americans were looking at non-strategic materials for war production but i get the impression that USAAF use of the Mosquito (and Spitfire) was done by field transfers (with an element of offering the pilots a bit of sporty variety).
And it occurs to me that for the UK balsa wood was perhaps a strategic material [from Ecuador, not the Hertfordshire rain-forests 🙂 ]
I don’t know how the Mosquito was moulded but the dh91 Albatross ply/balsa/ply sandwich seems to have been laid up on a heavy collapsible MALE mould (taken out from the inside) …there may have been an article in Aircraft Engineering magazine about 1938

No I was referring to the Marauder.
As I said the Mosquito was used for recon & other special roles by the Americans.
They had in place enough aircraft for other roles so it would of made no sense to build it in the states.
Night fighter the P-61, medium bomber B-25/26 and also the A-20.(later the A-26)
As for a fast ground attack aircraft they had one of the best with a single pilot the P-47.

Regards Duggy.

Perhaps post#8 is referring to the Douglas A-26 (renamed the B-26 post-war)

The Liberty ship was an original British design and successfully mass produced by the U.S. Almost three thousand units were manufactured each capable of a payload of ten thousand tons. What a truly prodigious effort ! What other nation could have done this ?

This quite amazing output tends to dispute Graham Boak’s assertion that even America did not have ‘unlimited’ production potential. What were the limits? If Uncle Sam had put his back into it, would that three thousand have become ten ?

With a certain amount of conjecture as a guide, I’m as certain as one can be, that if America had seen fit to produce the Mosquito we would, in short order, have seen upwards of five thousand aircraft each possessing a performance much superior to its alleged equivalent in the bomber role; the B26 (#8). Each Mosquito hazarding the lives of just two crew as opposed to seven in the B26.

I can’t see why America would have wanted to license build our designs. The Merlin aside, they didn’t license build anything else, and indeed their own designs were far more suited to mass production.

They did adopt the 6 pr anti tank gun and produce it as the 57mm M1. Substantially the same, it differed in many ways. They certainly had no interest in producing British tanks, despite much effort spent in trying to persuade them.

Even America did not have “unlimited” production potential. Everything takes time, fills space, has costs and has to compete against the alternatives. “entirely sensible” is a very subjective judgement that appears to ignore many of the factors involved.

If ‘entirely sensible’ is subjective and appears to ignore many of the factors involved, it is because I don’t know what those factors are, which is why I’m asking those on this forum who might know some or all of the answers to the question I posed.

It’s a tricky one. As complex as the B29 is, it would have been far more complex, I suspect designed in the UK. Witness the Vickers Windsor, which was designed to do a similar job, and built in the same piecemeal way as the Wellington.

The Mosquito benefits from a great deal of historical hindsight. Additionally, the most authoritative reference on the aircraft was written by the DH company archivist, at least in part. I wonder how it was really viewed at the time, as opposed to how we place it in history today. Certainly, it had a high loss rate during initial operations.

It is a relatively simple aircraft, and would not have been difficult to be put into production in the USA.

Apart from that, it might be that the Americans thought that an over complicated design did not easily lend itself to methods of mass production.

Was the Mosquito that complex? The reason I’m asking is the “piano factory” / shadow factory network often referenced in Mosquito production.
Some here know far more about UK production than I do, so I’ll ask…. I’m I wrong to take that phrase literally?

And as far as having an aversion to complex designs….I’m not sure that is 100% accurate. Witness the B-29, the most complex mass produced aircraft of the war.

I can’t see why America would have wanted to license build our designs. The Merlin aside, they didn’t license build anything else, and indeed their own designs were far more suited to mass production. It might be interesting to consider how they would have changed the Design of the Spitfire to suit their methods, which was not exactly a simple design..

Even America did not have “unlimited” production potential. Everything takes time, fills space, has costs and has to compete against the alternatives. “entirely sensible” is a very subjective judgement that appears to ignore many of the factors involved.

“Where there’s a will there’s a way”. I think that many acknowledge the truth of that statement. It seems to be the case that other aspects being equal, there was a distinct lack of “will” in certain quarters much of it to do – if the reluctant American production of the Mustang is any indicator – with national prestige, when the perception was that certain designs were too foreign.

Apart from that, it might be that the Americans thought that an over complicated design did not easily lend itself to methods of mass production.

My thanks for all the comments. They answer some of the questions concerning the prospective production of the Lancaster, Mosquito and Spitfire designs by the Americans. It would have been entirely sensible, in view of the unlimited manufacturing potential of the U.S for them to have been the principal producer. Other ideas prevailed.

The best info on the torrid and generally-unhappy history of USAAF involvement with Canadian Mossie production was compiled by Norman Malayney for an article in the Journal of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society, and much of it is available in his magnum opus, The 25th Bomb Group (Rcn) in World War II. IIRC there’s info about the production story per se in Sharp & Bowyer’s book.

Licence production involves much pain. We have records of 2 thoughts: A.Furse, Wilfrid Freeman, Spellmount,2000,P.223, 8/41, Lancasters in US: declined by US as, at that time, no operational benefit was evident; Mustangs in UK, rejected 7/42 by UK as being disruptive to other supply (H.Duncan Hall, UK Official History, N.American Supply, HMSO,1955,P.387). Even if US industry might have got on with it quicker than did Canada’s (why would they: remember how modest was US industry before Roosevelt started spending in late-1940), to divert firms from the job in hand, to assess and substitute Limey fasteners, material, basic Specs., would simply have ensured that the front line received zilch. No-one knew until, what, mid-1943?, that Mustang, Mosquito, Lancaster had certain attributes that, if earlier evident, might have caused them to displace lesser types at early production stages. Hindsight.

(Added, 1/11/15: Hall, P.181 also has 10/40 thought of licenced Stirling, then Halifax, rather than taking B-24: rejected, P.183 as (very large production for UK) “required capital expenditure on such a scale that only (USGovt. could fund. USG) was not ready to provide them except for the production of types that would be used by (US Forces)”).

Considering that the aircraft was built from a product naturally grown in Canada, and also the complicated method of how it was produced.
Quote –
“To cover the mainplane structure and add strength, de Havilland woodworkers built two top mainplane skins and one bottom skin using birch plywood. The top skins had to carry the heaviest load so the designers also beefed them up with birch or Douglas fir stringers cut into fine strips and glued and screwed between the two skins. The bottom skin was also reinforced with stringers. Together the top and bottom skins multiplied the strength of the internal spars and ribs. A Mosquito mainplane could withstand rigorous combat manoeuvring at high G-loads when the aircraft often carried thousands of additional pounds of fuel and weapons. To maintain strength, trim weight, and speed fabrication time, the entire mainplane and spar was finished as a single piece, wingtip to wingtip, with no break where the wing bisected the fuselage. A finished and painted mainplane was light and strong with a smooth surface unblemished by drag inducing nail or rivet heads.

De Havilland engineers and technicians used generally the same techniques to construct the Comet, Albatross, and Mosquito mainplanes out of wood and plywood. When they designed and built the fuselage, however, they copied the methods and materials employed to build the Albatross fuselage. This airliner was the product of the brilliant mind of Arthur E. Hagg, de Havilland’s Chief Draftsman in 1937. He left the company that same year but his ideas lived on in the Mosquito. Hagg created a light, strong, very streamlined structure by sandwiching 9.5mm Ecuadorian balsa wood between Canadian birch plywood skins that varied in thickness from 4.5mm to 6mm. The plywood/balsa/plywood sandwich was formed inside concrete moulds of each fuselage half, and each mould held seven birch plywood formers reinforced with spruce blocks, plus bulkheads, floors, and other structural members. As the glue cured, metal clamps held the skin layers tight to the mould. Technicians finished the edge of each half of the fuselage with male and female wedge joints as fitters attached wiring and other equipment to the inner walls. Final fuselage assembly was reminiscent of a typical plastic model aircraft kit as the two halves were glued and screwed together. Fabricators completed the final step in building the fuselage when they covered it with Madapolam (fabric).

To build the empennage, workers framed the rudder and elevator out of aluminium and covered the structures with fabric but the vertical and horizontal stabilisers were constructed from wood. Although the materials are different, Hagg’s composite sandwich construction material is similar to the foam and fibreglass composite sandwich developed by Burt Rutan during the 1970s.”
It doubt it would of been possible to set up a pruduction line in the US quickly.

Also the Americans, used the Mosquito in special roles. LINK- http://www.axis-and-allies-paintworks.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?11011
As for a medium bomber in Europe the B-26 was more than adequate.

The time taken to throw together a one-off prototype shouldn’t be compared with the time taken to set up a full production line. Perhaps a better guide than my estimate should be the time taken to establish the Mosquito production lines in Canada and Australia from the decision taken to the first flight, though one point is the shortage of experienced DH engineers available to oversee such work. Another one may have been one too many.

But perhaps the year of this request was important? It is worth remembering that the US were not heavily committed to the Mustang themselves early in the aircraft’s development and history. But for the “fix” that created the A-36, the type would have gone out of production before the appearance of the P-51B, and even then this was allocated to the 9th AF rather than the 8th until the demands of the 4th FG. So offering Mustangs may not have been quite the impressive deal it appears in retrospect.

The political (in the widest sense of the word) aspect is also relevant. There was considerable US opposition to the production of the Merlin – there would have been even more to the establishment of a production line for a British airframe. Especially one that appeared to be a throwback to pre-metal structures.

According to Bishop’s account, desperate enough to offer Mustangs in exchange for Mosquitos. Countering the point made above; Canadian production for 1943 amounted to ninety aircraft.

Let me repeat my point: Given what most of us know about the seemingly endless capability and capacity of American war production, it seems rather strange that when our own resources were stretched to capacity, we didn’t strike a deal perhaps under reverse Lease Lend, to produce a much-in-demand fabulous aeroplane utilising American production capacity.

As for ‘lead in’ times, wasn’t the prototype Mustang designed, built and flown in about 12 months ? How long would it have taken the Americans to build almost any number of jigs ?

The time taken to set up a production line would have been excessive. It isn’t clear quite how “desperately” the US wanted Mosquitos, but if it was desperate then coming along in 12-18 months time wouldn’t meet the demand. Whether it would have been worth setting up such a line for only 250 aircraft is another matter. Fortunately there already was a US production line for Merlins, but they were all fully booked already so there’d be considerable arguing over priorities anyway.

More and better production resources and facilities, given that the Americans having seen the Mossie perform wanted to place an initial order with the British for about 250 aircraft. Our production had little hope of supplying those numbers.