UK flying Mossie candidates

[Truro Model Builder]

15 minutes ago, NoSG0 said:

Sorry if this was mentioned already, but the # of new build Mossies is 3?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m81wEm1q824

 

Lovely job.

 

Cracking link. Doesn't she look gorgeous in Coastal Command colours?

 

There are four Mosquitos in airworthy condition, all in North America:

 

KA114 (FB.26) f/f Aardmore 27 Sep 2012. Based at the Military Aviation Museum, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Painted as 'EG-Y' of No.487 (NZ) Squadron

 

PZ474 (FB.VI) f/f Aardmore 13 Jan 2019. Based at Lewis Air Legends, San Antonio, Texas. Painted in Coastal Command colours with D-Day stripes.

 

TV959 (T.III) f/f Aardmore 26 Sep 2016 as NZ2337/YC-F. Based at Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum, Everett, Washington. Fitted with armament and painted as FB.VI NS838 'UP-J' of No.605 Squadron.

 

VR796 (B.35) f/f Victoria 16 Jun 2014. Based in Richmond, British Columbia with a private owner. Painted as B.IX LR503 'F'.

 

As well as the TPM and MPT projects, there is a T.43 in New Zealand and a B.35 in Canada being actively worked on. The latter is planned to be finished in Spartan Air Services colours, which will be different.

 

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Truro Model Builder

[fightersweep]

13 hours ago, Truro Model Builder said:

Yes, that is true. RR299 was indeed going to BBMF at the end of the 1996 season, All the negotiations and paperwork had more or less been completed, and BBMF were to take ownership once the season was over. Sadly, it wasn't to be.

Exactly what I heard through the in house grapevine back then. Such a tragic loss.

[NoSG0]

Mossie at 2019 Oshkosh

skip to 1:27

 

 

Keith Shilling flying the Mossie

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by NoSG0

[hairystick]

On 4/21/2020 at 5:38 AM, NoSG0 said:

Keith Shilling flying the Mossie

Skilling.

 

She is utterly magnificent up close! The attention to detail really only comes home when you get inside and under her, and is a true indication of the skills and dedication of the team who rebuilt her.

I must pop down and try to see what is happening with the last mossie build, as it has all gone rather quiet.

 

As for getting another airframe out of a museum to fly, the glues used in the initial build really prevents this. They were designed for a limited wartime lifespan after all.

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Agreed. I personally would be much more comfortable flying a rebuilt example using new wood. The good thing about doing that is that it's not usually 'good' static examples which are the donors for rebuild, so we get more good whole Mossies by doing this, not "risking" the few which is never an argument I personally subscribed to, but I know others do feel passionately against historic aircraft being flown due to the risk of loss if they're crashed. If it was a pile of bits to begin with, and someone was willing to pay to turn it into an intact airworthy aircraft and there's a queue of pilots elbowing each other for the immense privilidge of being entrusted to fly it - then who's to argue?

[JohnT]

What Jamie said plus I read somewhere that the Mossie is a great aircraft but there are some parts of the flight envelope it’s dangerous to get into. Mind you I expect you can say that for most aircraft but it was made I recall in the context of being careful not to take a Mosquito there

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

That's true - the Mosquito's fin and rudder are too small to put it simply, and because of that there's a fairly big gap between the normal take off and landing speeds and Vmc. From the B.35 pilot's notes Vmc is listed as 175mph but one would expect to lift off and touch down some 50mph+ below that, meaning that loss of an engine at lower speeds is very dangerous compounded by losing half the hydraulic oil pumping capacity.

 

The scenario thus would be an engine failure on take-off at high boost setting, perhaps a little flap and undercarriage down. The pilots notes instruct that the dead engine propeller must be feathered and the radiator shutter closed immediately, and power will need to be reduced on the live engine to be within the control authority of the small rudder. You're then down to about 35~40% of the power you had for takeoff with the wheels still down - they'll take a long time to retract without hydraulic pumps on both engines running.

 

There are numerous stories of pilots hedge-hopping away from the airfield trying to get the wheels up and accelerate slowly on one engine, gradually bringing up the power as the airspeed and rudder control authority improves. If you were unlucky, too slow to react or just heavily loaded you were probably just screwed in truth.

 

It's somewhat diminished as an issue with display flying although not eliminated, due to the much lighter weights they fly at and consequently lower power settings they'll use for take-off and the landing approach.

[Graham Boak]

At the end of WW2 the maximum take off weight of the Mosquito was cut drastically for this very reason.  It didn't cure the problem but reduced the time at risk after liftoff.  In later years Canberra single-engined approaches were practised continually until it was realised late in its career that there were more fatal crashes in practices than actual engine failures.  To be fair perhaps that may not have been true earlier in the engine's development, but it was considered something of a quiet scandal for some time before such practices were stopped.

 

Long time ago now, but as an apprentice I spent some days calculating and plotting Weight, Altitude, Temperature carpet graphs for safe take-offs for the Jetstream 200.  Five years later it would have taken an afternoon, with a short computer run on Warton's mainframe.  But still manually plotted to send to Tech Pubs.

[NoSG0]

Thanks Hairystick,

 

I apologize for the error.

 

Sorry to go off topic, but, I really enjoy the upgraded Mossie available in the game.

 

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by NoSG0

[airjiml2]

On 4/17/2020 at 1:59 PM, Truro Model Builder said:

 

a B.35 in Canada being actively worked on. The latter is planned to be finished in Spartan Air Services colours, which will be different.

 

 

 

There are two Mosquitos in Canada actively being worked on.  One in Nanton (CF-HMQ) which will eventually wear Spartan colors and be on display at a Museum in Calgary and a new build airplane based upon the metal of CF-HMR.  There has been some talk of it being airworthy, but my expectation is that it best it will taxi and run.

 

Jim

[1903flight]

It would be good to see a Mosquito flying the UK again.  I was fortunate enough to live not too far away from where RR299 was based, at BAe at Hawarden when I was at school. We often saw it fly back or even practising displays.

 

James

[Max Headroom]

On 4/23/2020 at 2:25 PM, 1903flight said:

It would be good to see a Mosquito flying the UK again.  I was fortunate enough to live not too far away from where RR299 was based, at BAe at Hawarden when I was at school. We often saw it fly back or even practising displays.

 

James

We were visiting friends in Parkgate on the Wirral, literally five minutes flying from Hawarden and ‘299 gave an impromptu display directly above us.

 

Trevor