Victoria Air Maintenance’s Mosquito Almost Ready To Fly

This picture was taken when the crew was Istalling the propellers on the deHavilland Mosquito. ( Image credit Victoria Air Maintenance)
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Mosquito
Mosquito

This picture was taken when the crew was Istalling the propellers on the deHavilland Mosquito. ( Image credit Victoria Air Maintenance)
This picture was taken when the crew was Istalling the propellers on the deHavilland Mosquito. ( Image credit Victoria Air Maintenance)

After Jerry Yagen’s de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito ( click HERE to read our article) another de Havilland Mosquito is about to return to the sky. This one is being restored by Victoria Air Maintenance in British Columbia.Victoria Air Maintenance was established in 1983 and has long been recognized as one of North America’s leading aircraft restoration and heavy maintenance facilities.The airplane originally scheduled to fly before the summer  is now few days away from its first flight although no date was set yet. Follow Warbirds News to read the coverage of this event.

The Mk.35 Mosquito at Victoria Air Maintenance in North Saanich, British Columbia, never saw active service. Built after the war, it went directly into storage. In 1954, it was purchased by Spartan Air Services of Ottawa as one of a batch of 10 and given the civil registration CF-HML. During World War II, many Mk.35s had been converted to photo-reconnaissance aircraft, and their high speed, 43,500-foot ceiling, and enlarged bomb bay was just what Spartan needed. The Mk.35 Mosquito flew until 1963, mapping northern Canada,operating from northern Defense Early Warning line sites like Resolute and Churchill.

Disassembled by the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1966, CF-HML was purchased by Don Campbell, who intended to make it airworthy again. He had it trucked to Kapuskasing Airport in northern Ontario to teach Air Cadets aircraft construction and maintenance. But by 1979, the airplane had been sold to Ed Zalesky. Restoration resumed, but the pace dragged. In 2005, Zalesky approached Robert Jens, owner of the Million Air corporate aviation service franchise at Vancouver International Airport, who already had a Spitfire Mk.14E.Having previously labored on a P-51, Jens initially worked on the aircraft himself, but the task was too daunting so he decided to let Victoria Air Maintenance do final assembly.

The entire warbird community patiently awaits for this beautiful bird to the skies again.

2 Comments

  1. I want to see TZ-138 fly again!!! Robert’s FR MK XIVe Spitfire… Perhaps a formation flight in Oshkosh??? Last time I saw that Spitfire fly was in 1971…

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