The story that has come down through the years, whether it’s true or not, is that the RAF crew flying the Mosquito -wanted- to lose to the P-61. They did not want the USAAF deciding that the Mosquito NF XXX was just the airplane they needed. since the Brits wanted to keep every one they could. I suspect it’s true, since all of the performance information I’ve seen on the P-61B puts it well behind the Mosquito in nearly every parameter. The P-61 was famously “too slow and low,” and the whole reason the P-61/Mosquito flyoff came about was that a number of U. S. high officers felt the P-61 was a dud.

The one thing I do think might be quite true is that the P-61 out-turned the Mosquito. Despite the fact that the P-61 was not particularly maneuverable by classic standards, it had an incredible turn rate, particularly at relatively low speeds.

if you can get hold of the excellent, ‘America’s Hundred Thousand’ by Francis H.Dean, you’ll find a lot of good, factual info and technical data in there regarding its performance, handling, systems, and what its pilot’s thought of it as a combat aeroplane.

Paul, many thanks for that recommendation. The book has arrived, and it is a stunningly comprehensive resource. Not cheap–$50 from Amazon–but worth many times that amount.

But wouldn’t “lessons learnt from previous attempts” have meant that they’d have created an airplane with the rate of climb, ceiling and speed to pursue and catch targets? Like, say, a Mosquito NFXXX? I’ll agree that it had the newest tech, troublesome as it often was, but it doesn’t seem to me that they did much else right.

The very early ones didn’t what? Didn’t have locking tailwheels? Didn’t have Marstrand tires???

While it could be foolish to try a one on one turning fight against a single seat fighter…

With the exception of the Me-262. This, in fact is the way several Mosquitos avoided Me-262 attacks, by continually turning into them until they were able to flee or find a cloud bank. No -262 could turn with a Mosquito.

The Thirsks book I have. What is the “Sharp and Bowyer book”? Those two last names don’t turn up anything on Amazon…