Comment by andyjohnson0
1 year ago
My father worked on mosquitos during his national service with the UK RAF in the 1950s. He worked on the airframes, and the mosquito was notable as being one of the last military aircraft to have a wooden airframe - with some kind of canvas stretched over the frame. Apparently this made it very light and manoeuvrable.
To be clear it was more canvas over wooden monocoque than frame. It was made out of laminated wooden shapes made in molds, quite unlike early planes. The canvas was just for weatherproofing iirc.
Thanks - I didn't know that. I guess I was using the term "airframe" as the generic term for the aircraft body, not to imply that its was composed of a literal framework. Thanks for the clarification.
My father was sent to a conflict zone (Malaya, now Malaysia/Singapore) and seems to have spent a fair bit of his time there repairing damage caused by ground-based small arms. Probably an exciting time for a twenty year old.