Equipped with two powerful Merlin V-12s, the de Havilland Mosquito wings its way across the skies …

Wait a minute, one, two, three, four, five … If the Mosquito has V-12s, why are there only five exhaust stacks on each side of the engine instead of six? Looking closer, weird, the fifth and sixth exhaust ports on each side of the engine route into one single exhaust stack.

Some will tell you they are designed it that way so that the aft-most exhaust stack doesn’t roast the wing. Valid point, I mean, the plane is mostly wood after all. But, uh, isn’t that something designers could work out without making a whole new set of pipes? I mean, other parts of the plane subjected to heat, are metal. Couldn’t they do the same on that small, exposed part of the wing? Get out the tin snips and wood screws …

The real reason, I think, has to do with the radiators nearby, situated in the inboard part of the leading edge of the wing. Put aside the whole idea that two pieces of the plane can’t occupy the same space at once. Even if it was simply a really close fit, we can agree that the toasty exhaust stack and the radiator, trying its best to cool stuff down, are as good of a match as Felix and Oscar. (Millennials can Google it … lol, idk, jk) What we’re saying here folks is that hot gasses and scorching metal just inches away from your radiator is no way to get maximum efficiency. No matter when you were born, we can agree on that, right?

So, mystery solved? What do you think?