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The wooden monocoque method of aircraft construction was perfected by the Albatros firm in Germany during WW I. The de Havilland Aircraft Company of England adopted the same technique for the D.H. 88 Comet racers of 1934, and the beautiful D.H. 91 Albatros airliner of 1937. The Albatros achieved excellent performance on quite modest Gipsy Twelve engine power through a clean aerodynamic form, and low frontal area through wing leading edge air intakes. These were the proven elements, combined with greater Merlin engine power, that gave the D.H. 98 Mosquito its remarkable performance.

The many sceptics may perhaps be forgiven for thinking that there was no use left for an ancient construction technique. Few other state of the art aircraft firms in major powers were still using it. One of the ironies of WW II was that the German aircraft industry had evidently forgotten how to build a wooden airplane, when they had invented the technique in the first place.

The success of the Mosquito triggered a last wave of wooden aircraft construction worldwide. Germany produced the Focke Wulf Ta 152 Moskito, a 1943 knockoff designed by the outstanding engineer Kurt Tank, but it could not equal the performance of the de Havilland Mosquito and was dropped.