New Mossies – where to from here?

Not sure – but there was full manufacturers support then of course, and some were operated by the Ministry of Supply, so probably came under the same umbrella as the military ones.

Bruce

Were the postwar UK civil operated Mosquitos on a permit? I would think that flying for reward they would have been on a CofA?

I presume you mean if it was a new design today?

Yes, although of course if you had a surviving airworthy Mossie in the UK you would not be able to get that a Certificate of Airworthiness either, only a Permit to Fly.

On the subject of Non-feathering props, look what happened to the South African Shackleton on it’s way to the UK when they ended up with the 2 Starboard engines out and unable to feather the props, there was a good docco on it on Disco wings

Some fascinating reading here. I’ve often wondered just how much new metal there is in the aircraft I’m looking at.
Out of the airworthy Spitfires (up to Mk 9), which one is considered to be the most authentic, and just what was done to MH434 when it had its major overhaul a few years ago?

there are good reasons why the Mosquito would not be certifiable today, at least not without a much better hydraulic system and a MUCH bigger fin and rudder!

I presume you mean if it was a new design today?

It is one thing to demonstrate single engined aerobatics in daytime at low level, starting with all the speed in the world in an unloaded aeroplane, and another thing to lose an engine as you try to pull the gear up with full tanks and a cookie on board, especially with the Mossie’s rather underpowered hydraulics straining to try to get the gear up so you can accelerate to single-engine safety speed. A lot of people were killed in asymmetric training on Mosquitoes, and it is worth reading David Ogilvy’s account of flying the type, also Neil Williams’ account of just a partial engine cut in a Mossie with no bombs on board some time, it is harrowing reading.

In the words of a well known service quote…..

When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane you always have enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash 😉

Good news that yours are full feathering – must have been that the ones Eric Brown was flying on were cobbled together from single-engined fighter props, as a stop-gap for deck landing trials.

Jim Dearborn has the remains of 2-3 aircraft, and he is going his own way with making moulds to do fuselages at present.
Bruce

What’s he going to do with them?

Doesn’t Jim Merizan also have one or two. (one of which is going to Sweden, I understand)

Hi

Well just to see
I pulled out the 4 blade prop from the depths of the garage (Just a Hub ) and it is fully feathering so I don’t know ?

There are a few of the 618 Sqn engines here in Qld and from my pics it seems they are ALL fully feathering like mine – perhaps this was a later Mod?

If you want to see what I am talking about go to my webshots accounts and look at the Caboolture museum shots and they show a few shots of the hub I am talking about.

Regards
John p

Let me qualify my rather sweeping comment. Yes, if you are fast, light and happy over occupied France and your Merlin puts a rod through the block, you have a lot more options in a Mossie than in a Spitfire or P-51D.
But you wouldn’t have those options for long if it wouldn’t feather the prop. It’s not just a matter of the drag of an unfeathered prop, which is bad enough, it is the unfeathered prop will keep rotating on a failed, non-lubricated engine, and this is quite likely to cause a major further failure through overheating of failed bearings, fire or a sudden seizure ripping the whole engine out of the wing.

With a feathering prop the Mosquito is of course capable of a fair performance on one engine PROVIDING the pilot has enough speed (or height he can trade for speed) at the point of failure, AND the weight is OK. It is one thing to demonstrate single engined aerobatics in daytime at low level, starting with all the speed in the world in an unloaded aeroplane, and another thing to lose an engine as you try to pull the gear up with full tanks and a cookie on board, especially with the Mossie’s rather underpowered hydraulics straining to try to get the gear up so you can accelerate to single-engine safety speed. A lot of people were killed in asymmetric training on Mosquitoes, and it is worth reading David Ogilvy’s account of flying the type, also Neil Williams’ account of just a partial engine cut in a Mossie with no bombs on board some time, it is harrowing reading. None of this is intended to denigrate the memory of a tremendously useful combat aeroplane, and if fighting a war I would value the Mosquito’s performance over the engine-out risk any day, but there are good reasons why the Mosquito would not be certifiable today, at least not without a much better hydraulic system and a MUCH bigger fin and rudder!

I’ll dig out a reference tonight from a book I read recently.

The pilot was a Mosquito intruder driver, given the chore of taking a not-unattractive WAAF on an experience flight.

Showing off shamelessly he boasted how the aircraft would perform well on one engine.

This one didn’t (I think, again, it was a prop feathering issue)

The ensuing conversation with a Hurricane already on finals for the same airfield had me in stitches

Moggy

It may have been an unfortunate choice of words, but LR was effectively stating the Mossie was lethal on one engine. My contention is, given a twin needs 2 engines, the Mossie was better than many of it’s contemporaries on one.

Strange – Geoffrey de Havilland’s party trick was upward rolls on one engine and there are numerous reports of returning from ops with an engine out. The Mossie’s one of the few twins that seems to have little trouble flying on one.

Given enough airspeed and altitude, any twin will fly on one engine for a while. The trick is getting the airspeed up to a reasonable figure once you don’t have any altitude to spare.

The problem with high-performance piston twins like the Mossie is that you cannot just push on full power for fear of torque rolling the aircraft, or at least putting it beside the runway, but without full power available you cannot build up the airspeed. The way to counter the rolling tendency caused by the prop is using the rudder, but the rudder effectivity is a function of airspeed again. So there’s the catch: on some aircraft like the Mosquito there is a gap between the lift off speed and the safe single-engine speed where you don’t have many options. The safe thing to do in such a situation is cut both engines and land straight ahead.

It flies well on one, but doesnt get airborne very well on one – perhaps thats the problem. If they werent fully feathering, then there would be a great deal of drag from the dead engine to boot.

The RAF Museum have film of Geoffrey flight testing W4052 over Hatfield – on one engine, and on no engines!

Bruce

….four-blader Mosquitos even more lethal than usual on one engine.

Strange – Geoffrey de Havilland’s party trick was upward rolls on one engine and there are numerous reports of returning from ops with an engine out. The Mossie’s one of the few twins that seems to have little trouble flying on one.

I’d like to see a replica of a Mosquito XVIII (think thats the correct mark) with the modified nose and 57mm Mollins anti-shipping gun in the nose, beautiful and extremely powerful

My understanding, from Eric Brown, is that all the available four-blade props were non-feathering, thus making the very few four-blader Mosquitos even more lethal than usual on one engine. (He did the carrier landing trials with one configured thus.) Makes sense because there are lots of multi-Merlin aircraft with three-bladers but all the other four-blade Merlin prop installations I can think of are single-engined types with no need to feather.

Hi again

Seeing as this thread went way off kilter I was going to propose that amongst all the Mossies that could be built / rebuilt could be a 618 Sqn machine – all kitted out with 4 blade props and bouncing bomb gear as was based at Narromine NSW – I bet she would fly well as these were real hot ships

Regards
John P

Dave

Thanks for the post

My idea is that the Museum /s would be funded as was the Duxford one – partly by the US as would some of the aircraft. The US would have an interest in doing this and as we are still there with them in Iraq (Not getting into that can of worms !!). There are no great Pacific Theatre Memorials in the SWPTO to the US and Allies and this is the basis of the thought.

Regards
John P