I had reason yesterday to drive down to Naike to see a man about a microlight, and so I called into Ardmore on the way to see progress on the latest Mosquito restoration at Avspecs. And progress is good!
This latest Mosquito is a FB MarkVI bomber version and its provenance is that it was built in 1945 by the Standard Motor Company of Coventry in England as TE811 for the RAF and after the war it was ferried to New Zealand for the RNZAF where it became NZ2345, being bought on charge on 28 May 1947. However it was quite quickly put into storage at Woodbourne. It was declared surplus in June 1955 having flown only 69.35 hours and was sold to the Williams brothers and then made its way to John Smith at Mapua in pieces and was discovered after John's death in 2019. (Most of the warbird world's attention was focused on John Smith's other Mosquito NZ2336 which was complete and now has been restored at Omaka). The boxes of NZ2345 were recovered to Avspecs and now form the basis of their latest restoration as photo'd above on 19 May.
When completed the Mosquito will go to Warbird Experiences Ltd/Fly a Spitfire.com in England. I was told that it will be completed this year so a few more trips to Ardmore will be in order!
No comments:
Post a Comment