Mossie in the air!!

I've really been a great fan of that paint scheme (a fantastic choice by FHCAM). Aspects of the paint work were even sprayed on or brushed on depending on what they were originally - FHCAM had a factory photo or two showing the roundels being applied by hand with brushes, so that is what they did too, and of course all of the personal markings were hand-painted on.

This Mosquito, TV959, is the third airworthy example in the world (first flying last year in New Zealand), based in Everett, Washington, joining VR796 located in Vancouver, Canada and KA114 located in Virginia Beach, Virginia. A fourth flying Mosquito is set to be completed by next spring, that being PZ474, which is in an advanced state at this time at Avspecs, and will eventually be based/flying in Texas after a period of flight testing is completed in New Zealand next year.
 
Love that twin Merlin sounds ! A beautiful warbird.The wooden wonder still flies is a miracle and a lot of hard work i'm sure.
 
Very expensive to get into too - according to the owner of Avspecs, the average cost of each of the three Mosquito projects they've been involved in so-far is right around $6.5 million USD. Of course all three of the projects they've been involved with so-far have required all new wood fuselages, wings, etc. (usually only the metal bits, of which there is actually quite a good amount on the Mossie, are ever usable/find their way back into the restored aircraft).
 
That's what i figured.Would love to see the Go-229 restored at the Smithsonian Museum but a lot of the ply and wooden parts are degraded and the cost of rebuilding too high in cost to restore that i guess it will never be done.
 
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$6.5M today would be $435,000 in 1942. Actual cost was closer to $85,715, but they had production quantity tooling to work with versus building them more like a one-off prototype, so 5x the cost is not unreasonable.
 
I saw it in the museum a few weeks ago; it was all ready to fly, they just hadn't worked out the scheduling details between the pilot and the owner yet. Pity I'll miss seeing it fly in person, but nice to have another one flying. I can't help but feel we're a bit spoiled here in North America, at least one of these should be gracing its home skies in the UK.
 
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