Comet down at shuttleworth

[TTB]

Just heard that the notoriously tricky to land de havliand comet has crashed on landing this evening at shuttleworth, pilot OK but plane nose ended and tail snapped

[JoshSm]

Worth making clear for anyone who doesn't know the difference that this was the little DH.88 air racer, and not the much more famous DH.106 airliner!

[Alex Z]

This was it a month or so back.

Good to hear the pilot is ok, but that’s a great loss if it can’t be fixed.

[hidetheelephants]

It's wooden I think? Should be readily repairable for display purposes if not for airworthiness.

[Simpo Two]

Bugger.

[Alex Z]

hidetheelephants said:

It's wooden I think? Should be readily repairable for display purposes if not for airworthiness.

Nope stressed skin and very modern for the time.

[hidetheelephants]

The Mosquito is stressed skin and made of wood; I don't know if the construction methods are the same, but stressed skin and wood aren't mutually exclusive.

[jimmyjimjim]

JoshSm said:

Worth making clear for anyone who doesn't know the difference that this was the little DH.88 air racer, and not the much more famous DH.106 airliner!

Thank you. I couldn't believe there were any still flying (of the airliner).

[2xChevrons]

hidetheelephants said:

The Mosquito is stressed skin and made of wood; I don't know if the construction methods are the same, but stressed skin and wood aren't mutually exclusive.

Yes, the DH.88 airframe is both stressed-skin and almost entirely made of wood (essentially everything apart from engine and landing gear mounts and some non-structural bits like wing fairings which were more practical to form from aluminium).

It's often said that the Mosquito's wooden construction was forced by wartime expediency. While being able to use non-strategic materials and dispersed production was very useful, the Mosquito really just reflected DH's state of the art in the 1940s. Which was using wood laminate and ply bonded together into very aerodynamically efficient shapes that would not be so practical to make in metal (vis: the difficulties encountered in getting the Spitfire to mass production).

For the Mosquito DH was building on gained experience from the 88 Comet and the 91 Albatross - it wasn’t a concept drawn from the needs of war.

The British aircraft industry was rather shamefully lagging when it came to moving to all-metal and stressed-skin airframes, especially for civilian aircraft.