Avspecs July 2018

it's time to meet the brains behind ab specs this is Warren Denham we're standing in front of a de Havilland Mosquito which is I gotta say pretty exciting to be hanging around how did you get this machine it's a bit of a long story but to make it shorter it came in from the US to be restored although it is an ex R&Z EF mosquito which is kind of unusual I suppose New Zealand Air Force were given well maybe they bought them I don't know 80 mosquitos after the war and in about 48 they flew most of them out here and then operated them for four years until the jets came along and a aerial photography company from California bought this particular airplane off the New Zealand government and tanked it up and Parma's the north and flew it back to the US in 1952 with a view to using it for aerial photography in California but then quite work out very well for them and eventually it ended up abandoned on an airfield and in north of LA and we picked it up in 2014 for our client from the from Texas and brought down a to rebuild the great thing about the mosquito though not many people won't know this is that primarily they're a wooden aircraft which was quite something and the war wasn't it yeah yeah when the war started mental airplanes like the Spitfire and a Mustang go they were all you know the new way of making was out of aluminium but the de Havilland company could see that metal was going to be in short supply with the war effort and so they decided to you know employ some of their time-honored you know techniques and build it out of wood they were able to make it by using the you know the little factories and little workshops around the Britain that had been making furniture and what-have-you that were kind of unemployed at the time to make parts for the mosquito because it was made out of wooden so they had all the skill of a non-strategic product and worked out very well I always think that if you were a part of the mother you'd have to be pretty brave sitting in basically a wooden aircraft when the the the bullets were flying oh absolutely I mean it's only made out of balsa and ply wood sixteenth of an inch all you know one five millimeter plywood with a balsa wood core so you know shrapnel went off piece could come through the site of the airplane quite easily but they did the dev armor and them eventually and effect plates of Steel to keep the bullets away but yeah no no and that big engine roaring away right next to your ear well how bigger those twin Rolls Royces well that 27 liters each so the v12 27 litre v12 these ones produce sixteen hundred and fifty horsepower at sea level supercharged four valves per cylinder beautiful motor how much joy do you get rebuilding something like this knowing there is there so much history and there is such a connection with maybe em and that are still around without a doubt that's one of the most rewarding aspects of the job is that you do get to bring back to life something that means so much to some of these veterans who lost a lot of mates flying these airplanes but it survived themselves and and have fantastic stories about what they were like to fly and how good they were when they finally get an opportunity to reconnect with the airplane that it's just magic really [Music]

Channel: NZ MVC

Views: 5,264

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: NZMVC;, New, Zealand, Military, Vehicle, Club;, Jeep;, Dodge;, WWII;, Military;, Transport;, army;, restored, vehicles;restoration;

Id: sYZibaM3KUk

Length: 3min 22sec (202 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 07 2018