WW2 Mosquito aircraft blueprints found at Airbus factory

A Mosquito in flight circa 1943

More than 20,000 technical drawings of a World War Two aircraft have been found at a factory in Flintshire.

Blueprints of the Mosquito were thought to have been lost but were discovered by Airbus in an office it was closing down in Broughton.

The twin-engine bomber was one of the most versatile RAF aircrafts to serve during the war.

The find has boosted plans by a group, the People's Mosquito Project, to rebuild the bomber.

Bill Ramsey, the project's operations director, who served in the RAF for 41 years, said the drawings weighed 67kgs (148 lbs) in total and were going to be thrown into a skip.

"It is actually probably unique in the world in that it's a complete collection of drawings for every mark and modification that was ever made to a Mosquito," he told BBC Radio Wales' Good Morning Wales programme.

"You could actually build any form of Mosquito, including one that never actually flew."

The drawings were made on micro film aperture cards

The piles of technical drawings that were found

He said it would cost about £7m to rebuild the aircraft, which was largely made from plywood and balsa, with the aid of the plans.

"It sounds like a lot of money but what the drawings do, they're important historically because they're a unique document [and] they have a certain commercial value to us," he said.

"Technically, it means that for some of the pieces of the aeroplane, the slightly more obscure ones, the Civil Aviation Authority will let us use those drawings to remanufacture them."

He added there was "a nostalgia for all things old" and that rebuilding a Mosquito capable of flying would please "lots and lots" of people.