This is my second report on our progress on the Mosquito and even though the weather has stalled, we haven't. It's been a productive few months on the project culminating with the fuselage
being lifted into the new fixture.
This part of the project took a fair length of time to complete but the devil is in the detail. The fuselage needed to be removed from its old wooden cradle as it has suffered from
delamination, mechanical damage and a level of disassembly.
The Salisbury Hall crew at the de Havilland Aircraft Museum in England was instrumental in giving us a basic idea about how to lift the fuselage. Following the de Havilland crews' lead, the
lifting beam was built with a few modifications.
The canopy, which provides structural support, was no longer attached to the fuselage. This required the team to reinforce the fuselage internally. With the number of skins missing and not
knowing if the primary structure was compromised, rigidity was key. We elected to go with an 8 inch I-beam with spreader bars on each end. The object was to have the straps lift vertically
and the big I-beam not droop. The security and rigidity of the fuselage during the lift was confirmed by mounting a laser in the cockpit aimed at two targets aft, one on bulkhead 4 and the
other on the tail bulkhead. A movement of just over an 1/8 of an inch was observed at the start of the lift and did not increase throughout the move.
The second part of the project was to construct a new cradle or fixture and install the fuselage. One of my pet peeves is the construction of fixtures and jigs that are a one of. We could
have welded large I-beams and built a full blown jig, instead I chose to use square tubing in square tubing, to keep the cost down and provide more flexibility. The fixture is bolted
together so once the fuselage comes out it can be knocked down for storage or can easily be reconfigured to accommodate a different fuselage.
Prior to lifting the fuselage all efforts were made to lighten the aircraft as much as possible. As I mentioned before, we were not simply pulling all the parts out. We have built mock ups
for every fuselage bulkhead stations and every part removed from them was transferred across to its corresponding board.
Moving forward we will further brace the structure in place and start to map it in more detail. A level of cleaning has already started but will continue. We will then focus on the fuselage
structure, one area at a time.
This job has been a culmination of many small jobs with many people who provided ideas, technical support or just picking up items that may have seemed insignificant at the time. My stress
level has dropped now that this hurdle has been cleared so with summer approaching (I hope) we look forward to everyone popping by to have a look.
Jack McWilliam