Isreali Mosquito curiosities

[The wooksta V2.0]

Doing some t'interweb trawling - as you do - for photos of Sea Mosquitoes in Isreali service and I found this:

 

 

Apologies for size but it is what it is.

 

Anyway, it looks like a sea Mosquito, yeah?  But...  The caption on it has it as a PR16 and you can just about make out the astrodome atop the escape hatch and the bulged side panel.  Except it clearly has a strake on the port side  and attachments underneath for an arrestor hook.

 

I know of 6 PR16s modified in this way.

 

NS729 PRXVI XI 618 SOC 5.4.46

NS732 PRXVI YI 618 SOC 5.4.46

NS735 PRXVI 618 Dived into ground on ferry flight Benalla Vic. 19.6.45

These were all 618 Sqn aircraft.  Clearly not this one.

 

RG171    PRXVI    RN    Scrapped 25.3.48
RG172    PRXVI    RN    SOC 3.9.53
RG173    PRXVI    RN    Sold (G-AOCL) Burnt Thruxton 10.60

And these three, modified for post war trials work.

 

So just where did this one come from?  Or, more likely, a PR16 escape hatch is fitted to an early production Sea Mosquito?

 

Can anyone shed more light on this?

 

Oh, and there's this oddity too.  Clearly a late TR.33 judging by the u/c, but what's with the nose?  Doesn't look like either TR33 nose and AFAIK, none of the TF37s were sold abroad.

 

 

Edited April 16 by The wooksta V2.0
Spelling perhetnares

[dov]

Hallo 

Whenever you approach Israeli Airforce: Take for granted, that no a/c was the next day the same as delivered one day before.  The energie in changing everything is at no other place on earth bigger than there. Eveything you see, is there. Where it derives from...forget it. Old and new a/c.

So I smile about the question,  I had hundreds of the same questions in the past.  I was told and shown hundred of times the unbelivable.

Happy modelling 

[Lee Howard]

15 hours ago, The wooksta V2.0 said:

Doing some t'interweb trawling - as you do - for photos of Sea Mosquitoes in Isreali service and I found this:

 

 

Apologies for size but it is what it is.

 

Former Mosquito B.XVI NS742 (ex-728 NAS Hal Far)

[The wooksta V2.0]

So, there's at least one more navalised PR16 (port strake and arrestor hook mounts) that we didn't know about.  Nothing in the Sharp/Bowman bible.

 

The complete list of Mosquitoes I have lists NS742 as:

NS742 PRXVI USAAF/RN To RN 14.5.47 G-AOCJ Israel as 4X-FDG/-91

 

But this photo elsewhere on t'interweb of PR G-AOCJ has no navalised features, so the one in the Isreali markings cannot be NS742.

 

 

 

Did find this list elsewhere on t'interweb of a full list of Isreali Mosquitoes.

http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/waf/aa-mideast/israel/af/types/mossie.htm

[Sabrejet]

I-S-R-A-E-L. 

 

Wasn't there one or two at Hurn back in the late '50s?

[Dave Swindell]

52 minutes ago, The wooksta V2.0 said:

The complete list of Mosquitoes I have lists NS742 as:

NS742 PRXVI USAAF/RN To RN 14.5.47 G-AOCJ Israel as 4X-FDG/-91

 

Form 78 has Hatfield built PRXVI 10MU 19/10/44, USAAF Watton 7/12/44, 44MU Home Census March 1946, 14/5/47 N.A.S. Stretton.

No help on it's later Israeli use, but a bit more info on it's UK movements

[tempestfan]

@The wooksta V2.0 - do you happen to have the AirDoc on Israeli Mossies? 

[Troy Smith]

11 minutes ago, tempestfan said:

do you happen to have the AirDoc on Israeli Mossies? 

I think I do.... but where?

Anything in particular about it? 

[tempestfan]

9 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

I think I do.... but where?

Anything in particular about it? 

So do I - and I know where 😉 I asked because I think it's the most complete coverage of the topic, and a lot more recent than the two Grub Str. titles quoted as sources in the Aeroflight listing - not sure when AE 83 appeared, Aeroflight's mag listing seems to be down at the mo. 

[The wooksta V2.0]

2 hours ago, tempestfan said:

@The wooksta V2.0 - do you happen to have the AirDoc on Israeli Mossies? 

 

No, it was one of the few Mosquito references I haven't hoovered up.  May try to track one down.  There's a couple on evilbay.

 

By and large I have no interest in Isreali subjects (Avia S199, Spitfires and Mosquitoes are about it) and in view of recent events, zero likelihood of modelling them.  My interest here is due to the fact that the Mosquito in the first post is clearly navalised but not one of the 6 navalised PR16s that are known of. I just would like to know what this actually is.

[tempestfan]

2 hours ago, The wooksta V2.0 said:

 

No, it was one of the few Mosquito references I haven't hoovered up.  May try to track one down.  There's a couple on evilbay.

 

By and large I have no interest in Isreali subjects (Avia S199, Spitfires and Mosquitoes are about it) and in view of recent events, zero likelihood of modelling them.  My interest here is due to the fact that the Mosquito in the first post is clearly navalised but not one of the 6 navalised PR16s that are known of. I just would like to know what this actually is.

It's a good one IMO. There's a seller on German ebay who apparently has bought most of AirDocs remaining stock, and sells at cover price - which is 15 € for that Mossie book, post free in Germany. In case you are interested in RCAF, they sell a bundle of @Patrick Martin's Silver Star & CF-104 books with a discount. While it won't be post free to outside of Germany, it may still make sense in case the prices elsewhere are as inflated as I have seen a lot. PM if that could be something for you, and I will send you the link.

 

I see your point, but in 1948 it was a fight for survival comprising a lot of desperate people that had just escaped my native country's KZs, and faced a very similar fate yet again. I have great respect for what they did and how they prevailed. 75+ years onwards - well, I see your point... Lest becoming political, history may have taken a completely different course had the 1948 Palestine partition plan been accepted.

[detail is everything]

On 4/16/2025 at 7:53 PM, The wooksta V2.0 said:

Oh, and there's this oddity too.  Clearly a late TR.33 judging by the u/c, but what's with the nose?  Doesn't look like either TR33 nose and AFAIK, none of the TF37s were sold abroad.

 

A lot of TR33s had the radar removed from the nose and the resultant hole capped.  Often mistakenly thought to be a later more aerodynamic radar nose.  See 

 and