Mosquito news
As an update on our earlier articles on warbird flying in New Zealand, here is an image of the latest Mosquito restoration by Avspecs Ltd. The aircraft concerned is NZ2308, a Mosquito T43 which used to be owned by the late Glyn Powell.
Powell, to freshen up your memory, was the person who re-developed the process of building new wooden Mosquito fuselages, wings and tail section. It is thanks to him that there are Mosquitoes flying again in 2023.
Years ago Powell preserved this NZ2308 with the intention to restore it to airworthy condition. Unfortunately he did not live long enough to see his dream come true as he died in November 2019.
NZ2308 is the fourth Mosquito that is bound to return to the air. The first, KA114, an FB26 made its first flight in 2012. It is registered as N114KA, flying with Jerry Yagen at the Military Aviation Museum, Virginia Beach (VA). The second that was restored was a T.III, TV959 which now flies in the livery of an FB.VI NS838 at the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum, Everett (WA) It made its first flight in 2016. It is, not surprisingly, registered as N959TV.
The third Mosquito to be restored in New Zealand was FB.VII PZ474 which made its first post-restoration flight in 2019. It was restored as N474PZ for Rod Lewis of Lewis Air Legends in Texas. But by mid-2020 Rod decided that he wanted a different type of Mosquito so he sold PZ474 to Charles Somers of Sacramento (CA). As a replacement Rod Lewis bought NZ2308 which will be heading to Texas when completed.
By that time there are still two potential restorations in the pipeline. No.5 will be (a yet unknown) FB.VII project that will be restored for Peter Monk / FlyaSpitfire.com in the UK. It is expected to be completed in 2026. Avspecs have a B.IV project for sale (DZ452, an ex-'Highball project' aircraft (that tested the Wallis bouncing bomb) which could/would be No.6 and likely the final one. This was the aircraft that had supposedly been the one that the now defunct UK Pathfinder group owned, or had reserved for ownership, until they switched to the ex-Glyn Powell T.43 NZ2308. This was then later sold and allocated to Rod Lewis when the Pathfinder group failed to raise the funds, and have effectively now ceased to exist as a group.
Photo Avspecs Ltd.