Birth of the "Wooden Wonder": Salisbury Hall - the home of the de Havilland Aircraft Museum

Описание: An exploration of how and why Salisbury Hall was chosen to develop the first Mosquito aircraft early in WW2. Located only a few miles south of de Havilland's main factory at Hatfield it offered a secluded site for such a project . However having no airstrip did later prove a challenge!
The design of the lightweight, fast, wooden DH.98 Mosquito was too radical for the British Air Ministry, which wanted large heavily armed bombers. Even with the outbreak of war, they was still sceptical.
The Minister of Aircraft Production told Air Vice-Marshal Freeman that work on the project should stop, but he did not issue a specific instruction. Freeman ignored the request. The de Havilland design team under Eric Bishop moved to the security and secrecy of Salisbury Hall to work on the project, which was nicknamed "Freeman's Folly". The first prototype - W4050 - was built in a barn next to Salisbury Hall, where the de Havilland Aircraft Museum is now located.
It was moved to Hatfield, where it first flew on 25th November 1940, with Geoffrey de Havilland Junior at the controls.
The Air Ministry authorised mass production of the Mosquito in June 1941; It was one of the fastest operational aircraft of the early part of the Second World War. Over 7,700 "wooden wonders" were eventually built.
W4050 has been restored to the configuration it had at the end of it's service life, and can be seen today in the de Havilland Aircraft Museum at London Colney, just a short distance from where it was first designed and built.