Finnish Mosquito
a hypothetical hybrid in 1/48

by Derek Pennington

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It is all my friend Bernie Hengst's fault.

I have always doubted that the Germans ever got their hands on a Mosquito, knowing from personal experience how they ‘reduce to produce’ on crash landing. But when he showed me three photos of one on wheels, at Rechlin, and that it was proposed to the Finns that they take it and make a copy, powered by Daimler-Benz engines, I was hooked.

My thinking was that the Finns are great wood workers, and had minimal steel making capacity. The aircraft would then use existing production facilities, for instance, the undercarriage from a Blenheim, and other cockpit fitments. A quick comparison of all-up-weights between the Blenheim and the Mosquito showed that this was a viable option. Also, this same undercarriage configuration was used on the Beaufighter, and that aircraft became a heavyweight!

So, I took an Airfix Mosquito, reasoning that a fighter-bomber would be more useful to the Finns, and two Aifix 109s who were to give up their engines and props. I won’t go into a long spiel of how it was done, I cut off all mention of the Merlins, and used the Mark One Eyeball to line up the DBs.

Some filling and sanding was required, then when finished, I used the advice from IPMS Finland on the colours (Humbrol). I thought that the aircraft would join the unit that operated the Pe-2, so used this aircraft as a guide for the painting. Decals came from the spares box, Lycra Knitting Elastic was used for the antenna wire….it gives when touched… the undercarriage from a Classic Airframes Blenheim Mark 4 was installed in the Mossie, and that was that.

And before you ask, the Blenheim will sit on a set of homemade Edo floats. This was a conversion that was tried and used in Canada.

 

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2002 by Derek Pennington
Page Created 11 May, 2003
Last Updated 17 March, 2004

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