Kiwi De Havilland Mosquito KA114

And something else this doddering old fool noticed.

The lumps were described correctly as V12 engines.
So why were only 5 (five) exhaust stubs visible on each side?
Just Jane down the road from me has basically the same engines and definitely has 6 stubs each side as have all Merlin's I have seen.

Or did my OLD eyes deceive me yet again?

 

Not deceived, at least on some Mosquitos, the exhaust from the rear two cylinders came out of one stub. (Look at a very early Spitfire or Hurricane and there are only three stubs each side).

cf this close up of the nacelle on one of the Mosquitos at the DH Heritage centre - look at the rear stub.



But not all...



This is the other mossie...

Tom

 

Thanks Martin, that's cleared up.

james squared wrote

Well indeed they might. 2 into 6 equals 3, so Siamesed exhaust ports. Quite common on all engines of that era, and even some today still.
But still intrigued as to why 5 and 6 were siamesed when 1 to 4 were not.

Any one know why?

 

Ah, that might make sense.

The two photos I posted were different aircraft. But they were also different sides of the engine: the one with five stubs was on the inside (i.e. between engine and fuselage); that with six stubs was on the outside.

Tom

 

I don't know if you folks have checked it out, but the process of restoring a Mosquito to fly is a somewhat drastic one, and makes restoring a Barry wreck look like a Sunday afternoon project.
AIUI it goes like this:
1) throw away the engines and get replacements
2) throw away *all* the woodwork and build new because the glue cannot be trusted at this age
3) throw away all worn metal parts and replace with new
4) throw away all metal fasteners and replace with new
5) throw away all parts that might be susceptible to metal fatigue and replace with new
6) throw away all consumable parts, tyres and the like
7) build a new aircraft and screw on the original manufacturers building plate (and if you are lucky maybe a couple of metal brackets as well).

 

These posts do sometimes get mixed up especially if more than one is repeated.
However I got the gist of your reply thank you Martin and the exhaust stub/siamesing reason now falls into place.

Whilst it is well known that there were many 'marks' of Merlin built by RR in quite a few different locations as well as Packard in the states, it is not so well known that Ford UK (that's the Dagenham dustbin company) when asked to build them, complained that RR's tolerances were TOO LOOSE and set about re-engineering them to TIGHTER tolerances.
All told Ford built in excess of 60,000 engines and NOT ONE was rejected by the MOD inspectors.

Packard also re-engineered the engine for mass production to US standards.

 

Ford's production line was at Trafford Park I believe and I thought I'd read that they turned out 30,000+ rather than 60,000+. Quality control was excellent though as you say and they also reduced greatly the number of man hours to produce a Merlin as well as slashing the cost.

 

You are quite right they were built at Trafford Park and the number was 30,400 not 60,000. By the end of the war the cost had come down from approx £6,500 to £1,200.
Not a bad achievement.

 

Glasgow was run by RR but was funded by the government.

Manchester was Ford and Derby was RR along with a new factory at Crewe now known as 'Bentley Crewe'.

As an aside, Bentley have today officially confirmed the rumour that they are building a SUV, pick-up to you and me. You can guess where most of those will be going.

 

Iwatched the program, and found it very interesting, one thing though, was the new gigs just the fuselage , or for the whole wings and central spar sections, if its a complete assembly gig they have made, will we see any uk based war bird owners placing orders for mossies, after all, you can get what are now zero hours packard built merlins quite easily,

 

Just seen this video taken of / from KA114.... fans of the RR Merlin should turn the volume up...
y

 

Interesting to see both the Lancaster and Mosquito taxing past a Hurricane on the ground and flying in company with what looks like a Bleinham?

 

Ah well I wasn't quite sure what the second twin engined plane was. As it stands the world's only airworth Bleinham is currently in bits having crashed a few years ago and is being re-rebuilt to flying condition.

 

I'm sure their are UK Warbird owners with the money. Fighter Collection, OFMC and Hangar 11 maintain a fair few aircraft between them so surely a Mossie wouldn't be beyond them.

 

Ah, having managed to watch the video clip in full just now, I see where I went wrong with the Bleinham. I was having problems watching on Thursday and got as far as seeing one of the scenes filmed from below/behind the Lancaster and there's one of the later model Spitfires off the port/left hand side is glimpsed fleetingly and that's where I went wrong as it has a more triangular tail as I previously mentioned. So it wasn't Mitchell at all as it like the Lancaster has a twin tailplane and didn't appear until later in the clip. After I'd given up watching.....