“…a synthetic resin material called Aerolite I believe.:
Aerolite is not the material, it’s the two-part urea-formadehyde glue that was used in wooden Mosquitos.
The item I have says the material was ‘Gordon Aerolite’ – which had a Ulitimate Tensile Strength of 70,000 lb/sq in; a Youngs Modulus of 7.0 x10 to the power of 6 and a density of 85 lb/cu.ft. along with cellulose-acetate sheet and cotton reinforced phenol-formaldihyde sheet.
And yes, it did have a lot of rivets, but again, the item reports that when the RAE tested it ‘The fuselage of the Gordon Aerolite was of the same total weight as the production fuselage in light alloy’.
The item concluded (it was written in 1945) with…
‘The construction of this fuselage may be regarded as having been something in the nature of an extreme insurance policy to cover a fairly remote but nevertheless possible emergency. Although the need for this type of construction never actually arose, the experiment was justified by the circumstances and the results obtained. It affords an interesting example of what can be done with alternative materials’
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