Aeroplane September 2017

12 http://www.aeroplanemonthly.com AEROPLANE SEPTEMBER 2017

T

HE fuselage of de

Havilland Mosquito TT

TJ118 went on display in

the Victoria and Albert

Museum in Kensington,

London as part of the new

Plywood: Material of the

Modern World exhibition on

15 July. Owned by the London

Colney-based de Havilland

Aircraft Museum (DHAM), the

fuselage has been salted away

for many years at DHAM’s

storage site in Tilbury, Essex.

The exhibition features

many important pieces by

architects Alvar Aalto, Marcel

Breuer and legendary

American furniture designers

Charles and Ray Eames, who

experimented with plywood

during the Second World War.

They developed a method for

moulding complex curved

forms that was used to make

plywood parts for various

aircraft including the Vultee

BT-13 trainer.

The DHAM also has the

nose of TJ118 in storage. It

was removed from the

fuselage during 1963 and

sectioned for use in cockpit

interior scenes during shooting

of the well-loved war fi lm 633

Squadron. It went on to serve

the same purpose later that

decade during the making of

the less well-regarded

Mosquito Squadron. It is

hoped that one day the

remains of TJ118 can form the

basis of a full static rebuild,

possibly to PRXVI standard.

The aircraft was actually

ordered as a PRXVI in May

THE world’s only airworthy

example of the Douglas

B-26K Counter Invader,

64-17679 Special Kay, fl ew

for the fi rst time following a

seven-year restoration

undertaken by the A-

Legacy Foundation at

Meacham Airport, Fort

Worth, Texas, on 8 July. Steve

Swift was at the controls.

By late July preparations

were under way to paint the

machine in the markings of

the 609th Special Operations

Squadron. This US Air Force

unit fl ew night attack missions

from Nakhon Phanom in

Thailand during the secret

war over Laos, disrupting

North Vietnamese supply

lines to South Vietnam on the

Ho Chí Minh trail.

The airframe originally

came off the Douglas

production line in March

1945 as an A-26B, 44-34198.

The USAF selected it for

modifi cation to B-26K

standard in 1964. It was the

last of 39 Counter Invaders to

be built by the On Mark

Engineering company at Van

Nuys Airport, Los Angeles,

and was restored to the USAF

inventory in April 1965.

Mosquito fuselage breaks

cover at V&A

1944, but emerged from the

Hatfi eld production line as a

B35, being part of a batch

delivered between July-

November 1945 and going

straight into storage with No

27 Maintenance Unit at

Shawbury. During July 1953

TJ118 was fl own to Sywell,

Northamptonshire, for

conversion into a TT35 target

tug by Brooklands Aviation.

The last examples were retired

from use with No 3 Civilian

Anti-Aircraft Co-operation Unit

at Exeter in May 1963.

The Plywood: Material of the

Modern World exhibition runs

at the V&A until Sunday 12

November 2017.

Owned by the de Havilland Aircraft Museum,

the fuselage of TJ118 has been salted away for

many years at the DHAM store in Tilbury

The world’s only fl ying Douglas B-26K gets airborne in the hands of Steve Swift at Meacham Field, Fort Worth on 8 July. JOSEPH FISCHER

COUNTER INVADER FLIES IN TEXAS

The dramatically suspended

fuselage of Mosquito TT

TJ118 at the Victoria and

Albert Museum on 15 July.

V&A

News September 2017

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