54 anuary/February 2022Jstrong, light three-layer “shell” that could absorb enemy fire
without breaking apart. The Mosquito’s fuselage is close to
a true monocoque airframe, meaning the aircraft structure
depends on the strength of its skin, not a load-bearing inter-
nal framework. The warplane’s sandwiched wooden body
carries all of the structural load, with no inner supports that
might be vulnerable to shrapnel or bullet holes.
When finished, the pair of triple-layer fuselage halves
came together via wooden plate joints and seven main inte-
rior bulkheads. As they became one, they looked similar to
the body of a typical plastic model airplane kit at the first
stages of assembly.
The Mosquito’s expansive one-piece wing was next. The
wing and tail surfaces, generally, were more straightfor-
ward than the tri-layer cylindrical fuselage. This part of
the project recalls the common woodworkers who might
have built this plane in the 1940s—the
one-piece was meant to be replicable
in any wartime woodshop. All that build-
ers would need to generate Mosquito
components was a set of plans, the propertools, and lots of f loorspace.
The Mossie’s burly wing spars are the con-
tinuous support beams that extend wingtip
to wing tip across the plane and anchor nearly
everything else on the aircraft, including
the dual Merlin engines and propellers, fuel
tanks, main landing gear, guns, and the fuse-
lage itself. They’re based in the middle of the
fuselage and extend outward on both sides,
carr ying more than seven tons of weight once
the plane is complete.
A series of laminated spruce beams make
up the top and bottom of the spar box, while
¼-inch-thick birch plywood constitutes the
front and back of the load-carrying structure. Each of the
Mosquito’s spars had to be assembled while clamped into
a jig to achieve the proper dihedral (upward wing bend)
and/or forward sweep, in the case of the aft spar.
Where components like the engines and landing gear
would be tied into the spars, we glued plates and reinforced
sections of walnut and ash into the spar structure. Each spar
is thickest where it crosses through the fuselage and becomes
more tapered and lighter near the wingtips.
Once finished, we mounted the spars in a jig and built the
wing structure around them. In order to access both the top
and bottom of the wing during construction, we oriented
the piece vertically in the jig, with the leading edge point-
ing toward the f loor.
Wooden structural members, side to side and front to
back, mix with layers of birch plywood skin to give the wing
its distinctive shape. Teardrop-shaped ribs, made from a
conglomeration of birch, spruce, ash, and walnut, come
first, filling out the wing-shaped cross-sections from front
to back. A layer of birch plywood follows, then a series of long
stringers made from Douglas fir that extend from fuselage to
wingtip, tying into each rib along the way. Over that comes
another layer of ply wood.WE’RE NOT SAVING
THE WORLD, BUT
WE’RE HONORING THE
PEOPLE WHO DID.
▼ The Merlin V-12
engines await
installation.
▶ The spruce
wing spars span
50 feet tip to tip.