5000 Francs De Havilland D.H. 98

The de Havilland Mosquito — the aircraft this coin commemorates — was built primarily from birch plywood and balsa, a choice driven by wartime aluminum shortages in Britain rather than any experimental ambition. German radar operators initially dismissed it as a non-threat. By 1944, the Pathfinder Force was using it to mark targets at speeds that made interception nearly impossible.

Burundi's aviation commemorative series of the mid-2010s was produced for the collector market with no meaningful domestic circulation. KM#40 is one of several foreign-subject issues from this period contracted through European minting intermediaries.