Sea Mosquito with folding wings.

[seadude]

This grabbed my attention and I was wondering what everyone's thoughts were about it? Didn't seem to go very far as only 50 aircraft were made.
Is there any other information and pictures of this particular model other than what Wikipedia has?
Were any model kits made of this particular Mosquito version or not? Or would I have to convert a regular Mosquito kit?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Mosquito

To meet specification N.15/44 for a navalised Mosquito for Royal Navy use as a torpedo bomber, de Havilland produced a carrier-borne variant. A Mosquito FB.VI was modified as a prototype designated Sea Mosquito TR Mk 33 with folding wings, arrester hook, thimble nose radome, Merlin 25 engines with four-bladed propellers and a new oleo-pneumatic landing gear rather than the standard rubber-in-compression gear. Initial carrier tests of the Sea Mosquito were carried out by Eric "Winkle" Brown aboard HMS Indefatigable, the first landing-on taking place on 25 March 1944. An order for 100 TR.33s was placed although only 50 were built at Leavesden. Armament was four 20 mm cannon, two 500 lb bombs in the bomb bay (another two could be fitted under the wings), eight 60 lb rockets (four under each wing) and a standard torpedo under the fuselage. The first production TR.33 flew on 10 November 1945. This series was followed by six Sea Mosquito TR Mk 37s, which differed in having ASV Mk XIII radar instead of the TR.33's AN/APS-6.

[jcf]

Conversion kits have been made, however the majority of the mods, aside
from the four blade props, are easily done without needing a conversion kit.

[Old Wombat]

Mosquito is one of my favourite aircraft but I think that the extra maintenance associated with their wooden construction would have told against them in the naval role, as it did operating in the tropics, where the wood structure tended to de-laminate & rot.

[Dizzyfugu]

For the same reason it was not very popular in the SEA theatre of operations.

[zenrat]

In the same vein as the rusty (Chevrolet) Corvette I want to build one day I am now thinking about a NMF Mosquito...

[Thorvic]

They were intended for Carrier Operations in the Pacific, but with the focus on finishing the war in Europe and the quicker end to the War against Japan, development slowed. If the Atomic bombs hadn't worked and they were going to have to Invade the Japanese Islands then they probably would have deployed on the Illustrious class carriers in 1946 in the strike role.

[PR19_Kit]

With Highballs?

[kitnut617]

I have a Paragon conversion to make one of those in 1/72 scale, got the Highball conversion too.

Interesting little story that is in the Sharp/Bowyer book on the Mosquito. When DH were planning the Sea Mosquito, they took a regular Mosquito of the time off the production line to use as a prototype. Someone from the design/drafting office came down and after making some measurements, drew a pencil line around the wing where the fold was to be, then told the carpenter 'cut here'. Whether that is true or not I wouldn't know 

[The Wooksta!]

That anecdote sounds more like what happened with the Sea Hornet prototype (George Cooper - The Hornet File, Air Britain)

Verlinden did a 48th Sea Mosquito at some point in the 1990s.  Paragon did a 72nd one in the mid 90s to go with the Airfix kit, then redid it in both 72nd and 48th to go with the Tamiya kits. The revised Paragon conversion is the one to have.  Ditto the Highball conversion. 

Interestingly, the Blackbird Highball conversion is a direct copy of the later Paragon one.  His two stage Merlins are clearly an original Paragon set grafted onto a set of Tamiya nacelles without fixing the mistake in the Paragon engines or removing the horrendous and badly placed pouring lug which interferes with u/c placement.

TBH, operations with carrierborne Mosquitos would have been interesting.  Winkle wasn't particularly fond of it.

[rickshaw]

A not unrelated topic:

Capt. Eric 'Winkle' Brown: the first Mosquito carrier deck landing

His opinion of the idea of Sea Mosquitoes and High Ball is very interesting...   

[Air21]

The only proper thing to do is use the nacelles and folding mechanism from an E-2D with the slick scimitar blades.  The fold back always looks best and who wouldn't like almost 3x the horsepower  :-