De Havilland Mosquito

[PanzerWulff]

I think the mosquito actually looks a bit Meaner with the radials more Butch than Sleek & Sexy

[Mossie]

i was thinking of a NMF USAAF example

I've only just picked up on this Trev!

NMF???  NWF more like, wasn't known as the wooden wonder for nothing!   Although you might be able to come up with a back story as to why the Americans went with an all metal version, maybe due to the problems the Mossies had with the humidity in Burma & such, maybe extra strength for a pair of grunty radials?

[elmayerle]

How about later model P&W Wasp series like the R-3350 for a late war bird or R-4360 post-war?  You could then paint it up with oil blowing all over ther wing & fairing, Skyraider style!  I know it's an inline, but Napier Sabre's would look seriously grunty & would be one hell of a talking point!

Minor point, the R3350 is a Wright engine, not a P&W one (I suspect partisans of both companies would be after you for that ).  I really don't see more than a two-row radial working on the Mosquito, anything more would severely muck up the weight and balance as well as play hell with the pilot's view.  Now, if you've got four R3350s and don't mind doing some surgery, there was a proposed R4090 that used the same cylinders as the R3350, but added two per row.

[Burncycle]

Not radial, but could a mosquito be fitted with Napier Sabres? They're about a foot wider than the merlins, but they're not as tall. Length is shorter or longer, depending on the model merlin.

[jcf]

Sabre-Mossie

Cheers, Jon

[Burncycle]

Cool pic Jon, thanks!

Frankly, given the problems with the Vulture engined Manchester, I think a twin Sabre Mosquito would be daft. The Sabre wasn't a very forgiving engine as it had very close tolerances.

Interesting, thanks for the comments. I read the numbers and they looked attractive, but wasn't aware they were troublesome.

[kitnut617]

Well you could always go with the Argentinian Calquin.



Brian da Basher

According to The Definitive 1-72 Scale Model Census you can get a 1/72 scale kit of this aircraft which is made by Llama (a company I've never heard off BTW)  Maybe Rafa could find something out about it?

Edit: Well now guess what I've just found!!

http://llama84.tripod.com/

[upnorth]

You know, the more I read this thread the more I like the idea of a radial Mossie. I may have to try one myself.

I was looking at my stash and I have a Smer reissue of Heller's 1/72 Breguet 693 that I doubt I'll actually build. From the information I can find, it seemed to be in about the same size bracket as the Mosquito.

What I could find out about its engines, the Gnome Rhone 14M, is that it was quite a popular engine and widely lisence built, I think the Germans even copied it for some of their own birds.

I think it might look good on the Mossie as it was quite compact and tightly coweled for a radial and so still had something of a streamlined profile to it.

Anybody think that engine would work with the Mossie?

[jcf]

Back to Trev's original thought of Hercules on his Mossie...

Merlin 20 Series 1,450-1,465 lbs; 1,390 hp
                   
Bristol Hercules XVI (Beaufighter VI, VIF, TFX)) 1,845 lbs; 1,615 hp;
weight increase in the area of 800 lbs for a power increase of 450 hp...

or using this selection:
Bristol Hercules XVII (TFX)) 1,845 lbs; 1,725 hp;
weight increase in the area of 800 lbs for a power increase of 670 hp.

Removal of the Merlin's liquid cooling associated equipment will reduce airframe weight somewhat, thus reducing the delta, but exactly by how much would require knowing the weight of the various parts.

The Bristol 101 series engines were the first with the rear-swept exhaust, and chronologically fit into the mid-war period, so why not give your Hercules powered Mossie rear-swept exhaust and tighter cowling? You could go separate pipes as later used on the Bristol 170 Freighter or a Tempest/Fury type combined ejector exhaust...which would look pretty cool.

BTW the Centaurus is 2,695 lbs, the Sabre went 2,375 to 2,540 lbs, the R-2800 was in the same weight range as the Sabre, R-3350 started at around 2,500lbs and only went up from there.
The R-4360 you ask? Fuggedaboudit, 3,200lbs at the low end.
All pretty much non-starters for a DH 98 based airframe.

Cheers, Jon
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

[Hobbes]

The liquid cooling system easily weighs 100 kg incl fluids, but that's offset by the increase in drag of an air-cooled radial.  

[jcf]

What I could find out about its engines, the Gnome Rhone 14M, is that it was quite a popular engine and widely lisence built, I think the Germans even copied it for some of their own birds.

The 14M was only 700hp.

Jon

[Maverick]

Weren't they the type fitted to the Me-323 (6 in total)?

Mav

[Maverick]

And if we're doing things exotically,  how about BMW 801s off the Fw-190A?

Beautifully cowled an compact, could be a post war jigger.


Mav

[jcf]

And if we're doing things exotically,  how about BMW 801s off the Fw-190A?

Beautifully cowled an compact, could be a post war jigger.


Mav

Actually it was not really all that 'compact' an engine, the installation had a lot to do with the appearance of compactness.

BMW 801; 79" long, 51" diameter, 2,325 lbs.

R-2800 as mounted in P-47D; 75.72" long, 52.5" diameter, 2,265 lbs.

Hercules; 52" diameter (55" as power egg-including cowling), I've been so far unable to locate length data, 1,845 lbs.

From a horsepower standpoint the 801 and Hercules are in the same class, but the 801 is a lot heavier and of a larger displacement: 41.8 liters vs. 38.7 liters.

Cheers, Jon

[upnorth]

O.K. no M14 if I decide to go ahead with a radial Mossie.

How about a Shvetsov ASh-58 like what they put in the Lavochkin LA-5?

From what I can find, it had a dry weight of about 1914 pounds and could crank out 1700 h.p.

I did find out last night that the M14 was actually liquid cooled so removing the Mossie's leading edge coolers is really a non option with it.

The Shvetsov unit is trully air cooled so the coolers could come off if it could be used with the Mossie.

Would make for an interesting Russian copy and the Russians certainly had enough wood available to open their own Mosquitoski assembly line.