I was wondering if light weight balsa wood was ever used in part of the construction of any WWI plane. During WWII, the DeHavilland Mosquito's fuselage was made from an inner and outer layer of two millimeter birch plywood with a seven millimeter balsa core. A product called Metalite was aluminum skinned balsa used in other aircraft.
During WWII, my father helped build Waco CG-4 gliders that used balsa wood as wing root fillets. This glider was similar to a Fokker D.VII in that the fuselage and tail surfaces were welded tubing, all wood wings, and covered with doped fabric. During his lunch break, he would fly catapult non scale gliders made from balsa scraps.
