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Imagine if the P-38 replaced that lousy Allison, with Brit's much more reliable, and robust Merlin. Ohhh-ahhh She'd have been a Diamond in the skies for sure. As was the Mossie.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I remember seeing a documentary about the P-38 that stressed the point that the reason the RAF rejected the aircraft was because the United States would not allow our P-38s to be fitted with the supercharger that they had on their aircraft. I suppose technically you could say that it was an engine issue that caused the RAF to discontinue using the Lightning but in my opinion it was really about the fact that without the supercharger the aircraft was about as much use as a chocolate tea 🫖 pot.
I worked with Henry Ledrer in the 70s at Fairchild Republic. He was a WWII Ace who flew P-38s, P-47s, and P-51s. He liked the 38 for its twin engines, the 51 for its handling, but said he would only want to go back in a P-47 because it could take more punishment than the other two combined and still get you home safe.
Fantasy land... Then came the A-10 Thunderbolt... Don't get me wrong, I love the old WWII fighter aircraft. if I was back in WWII, get me in that damn Forked Tailed Devil P-38 and let me get to work! Beautiful, Graceful, Powerfull, handle anything, and fiire-power to back it all up! Yet, we're in 2024 now.... Gone are the good 'ol days where pilots were heros flying a crap load of metal, firing real ammo and handling real G-Forces... No, not today, It is about the arm-chair computer pilot (Drones) that doesn't have a clue what these men of past went through. No realization of what it physically took, blood, sweat, tears and a lot of bordom flying an aircraft into battle. Then, once in battle, shit-n-piss your pants, sweating, G-forces, aiming, protecting your fellow pilots, all the while checking your guages and fuel (amongst a whole lot of other factors) and doing your best to survive while fulfilling your ordered duty. It is just do different, yet, I have so much respect for WWII figher pilots than I have have for today's computer pansies... Sigh.
@@QuintenStanford-og9seexcuse me? Why does no one mention that the amazing P47 could cruise at 42,000 feet, and look down at the ME 109’s and FW 190s, well below them at 33K and 34K’? Those Luftwaffe pilots could only look up and see their enemy 8000 feet or more above them and say their prayers…
@@BrokenandRestored As a Mission Crew Commander Air Battle Manager on AWACS, I can tell you the A-10 Warthog has some limitations too. It has no radar and its a sitting duck for any other air adversary. I have to have dedicated fighter CAPS just to keep the CAS assets like the A-10 safe. Otherwise the A-10 can't be used unless we have air supremacy, let alone superiority.
My late father changed from instructor to PR Mossie and also had a lightning which he flew as CO when in the Med. Overall he favoured the Mosquito. It got him through on several shoot up occasions and he survived two engine failures on take off. Out through the canopy of course. One mission from Poland saw a dead engine and unknown in the air, virtual loss of the tail from enemy shrapnel. The wooden construction held firm and one engine got them back He and his navigator felt it to be a safe plane. His log books tell many stories. God Bless all the brave pilots and crew of WW2.
By the end of the war, the Mossie had the best crew-survival rate in Bomber Command. While it's true wood is more flammable than aluminum, it burns at a lower temperature and doesn't flow like water when it is aflame. (See HMS Sheffield, Falklands war.) That gave the crews more time to evacuate or bail out.
Not gonna lie, if I had flown two aircraft and narrowly escaped terrible things in one of them on several occasions... ...there's a good chance I would conclude I wanna fly the OTHER one. 🤣
Mosquito seems to have been less susceptible to explosive bullets. They punch through before exploding on the other side. Two Mossies could carry considerably more bombs than one B-17 but using 4 crew vs 10. Who knows why the top brass failed to notice this small fact and take action.
@@Dave5843-d9m No they couldn't!!! Standard load on most Mosquito Bombers was 2000lb (4x 500lb bombs). To get anywhere in Germany past the Ruhr required drop tanks which took out the 1000lb of bombs on the wings. Plus the aircraft was not faster than any of the single engine German Fighters by 1943. A lot of Mosquito Bomber Operations in daylight in 1942 over Germany and Europe suffered a 1 in 6 loss / sortie rate as any raid saw at least one Mosquito shot down by Flak or Fighters. What really saved the Mosquito as a Bomber was the OBOE pathfinder mission in early 1943 which were flown at night and at 30,000 feet, but Bomber Command only had three squadrons of the aircraft between 1942 and late 1943 (and only two of them operated OBOE), the other Squadron was used mostly to lay Window clouds until 1944 when they got a few aircraft fitted with H2S and could do Marking beyond the range of OBOE stations in the UK. The vast majority of Bomber Command Mosquito bomber sorties were flown in 1944 / 45 when the Luftwaffe was beaten, they were done at High Altitude and at mostly at night. The Mosquito only dropped a total of just under 1000 Cookies on Germany in the whole War (Around 1770 Bomber versions were built in total in the whole production run for the aircraft). Modifying the aircraft to carry the 4000lb Blockbuster Safely caused a lot of problems for De Haviland which took nearly a year to solve and only a few squadrons in No 8 PFF Group actually used the weapon on a regular basis.
My Mother worked shifts at a De Havilland assembly plant at Downsview, Ontario, Canada during the war helping to make Mosquitos, which were apparently shipped in a knock-down state to the UK. She told us that airframes were never on the same ship as the engines. In case either one was lost in the Northern Atlantic, they only lost part of the final assembly rather than complete aircraft. I have photos of her in dungarees and bandanas - my own Rosie the Riveter!
My grandfather was the general manager at Myles Aircraft in England during the war. When my mum married a Canadian paratrooper and came to Ontario, my grandparents moved to Etobicoke and my grandfather went to work at a place called Malton for a shop called A.V. Row. He retired the day the Diefenbaker government killed the CF-105 Arrow. 😢
@@michaelhilborn4204 the cancellation was a total disgrace - a day the nation will forever mourn. Many of the engineers went down and joined NASA. The old town of Malton, in NW Metropolitan Toronto, is the site of YYZ, Toronto's Pearson International Airport and many former aircraft companies. Your grandmother was one of the great many "war brides" our guys brought home, proving that Canada actually won the war! Bless them all. ❤
@@coldlakealta4043 Actually, my mum is a war bride, not my grandmother. She is 96 and still very much with us. 🙂 My grandfather was offered a position with NASA but he turned it down. The only reason he came to Canada in the first place was to be near his daughter and grandchildren. My mum's only brother was a naval aviator in the Fleet Air Arm. His Fairey Swordfish was shot down during an attack on the Bismarck. He was one week shy of his 21st. birthday.
My father flew the P38 Lightening in the South Pacific theater. I have pictures of some Betty Bombers sitting on the white sanded beaches. Also, of trip lines he and others found on rendezvous. He told me that having to give up flying was one of the hardest things he has had to do. So, he ,"baby sat", some P51 and other planes after the war ended in Japan, until he needed to return to Texas, and finish college at UT Austin. Always, a pragmatic man, and a loving father. Still have his flight suit and dress uniform.
My Grandfather flew from 1940-46 he was shot down three times in Spitfire 5s, he flew 78 missions in Mosquito, he loved Spitfire 9 and said the ground crew for his third tour with Mosquito were able to give the engines some extra pep that saw him outrun 109G on numerous occasions, but in his own words his Mossie was an unusually fast kite 😊
I believe Nitrous Oxide was injected into the merlins to give short term power..According to John Cunningham he caught and shot down FW 190 at night ...the german pilot traveling at what he thought ''They will never catch me at this speed''....
I am sure he was glad to be off Spit Vs and get on IXs. From everything I've read, squadron morale went way up upon delivery. Going from disadvantage to relative parity against 190s is a big jump.
My father flew both on operations as a Master Bomber. Here are his first impressions of both types 19 July 1944 Target: Thiverny - V1 Storage site A/C Mosquito DZ521 S/L C.B.Owen, F/L D.Bowes Time: 3.00 “First trip in Mossie, and my first daylight op. Took off an hour after the Lancs and caught them up at the French coast much to the joy of Don, who’d had enough of sitting behind the curtain in a Lanc and twiddling knobs. France looked very peaceful in the afternoon sun, and I even caught a glimpse of Paris in the distance. Heavy flak at the target, but the Lancs caught it while we watched. Left the Lancs at the coast and beetled back to base flat out. Arrived at dusk and beat up the mess, much to the consternation of the gang at the bar. Decided that a Mossie is definitely a safe way of going to war.” 1 August 1944 Target: Ourville - V1 launching site A/C Lightning 424360 S/L C.B.Owen Time: 3.30 “First trip in the Lightning, Curious sensation flying above cloud with no navigator to tell me where we were (or should be). Thankful to pick up the Lancs on the South Coast as cloud was getting very thick. 10/10 over the target so I called the show off and turned for home. Map-read back from Selsey Bill, which I found a bit of a strain after relying on a crew to do the dirty work. Found the Lightning very quiet and comfortable after a Lanc or a Mossie.”
My uncle who flew the Mossie told me the problem with the SE Asia Mossies was due to the resins breaking down in the heat and humidity. This was resolved by using different resins in the Australian built Mosquitoes.
The Mossy used casein based wood glue very close to Elmer's brand white glue. Casein comes from the slaughtering process of cows. It is used as a very low-quality cheese substitute on some cheap frozen pizzas , not for nutritional value which is low to zero. A pizza has lots of ingredients that provide calories from grease, flour, tomatoes, and other ingredients. I can name one company that cranks out casein pizzas. Evil company.
I believe it was a formaldehyde based adhesive that did the tropics operational trick see Handbook of Adhesives and Sealants Volume 1, 2005, Pages 215-347 Handbook of Adhesives and Sealants Chapter 5 Aerospace: A pioneer in structural adhesive bonding John Bishopp abstract only read Abstract This chapter falls, quite logically, into four distinct sections. The first deals with wooden aircraft from the first heavier-than-air machines through to the mid-1940s. Here animal-based adhesives were a natural choice for bonding wood; furniture makers had been using them for centuries. This section ends with the success story of the de Havilland Mosquito; a wooden airplane held together with a urea-formaldehyde (U/F) glue - one of the first truly synthetic adhesives. . . .
end of story? In any event, in early 1937, de Bruyne commissioned a Dr. R.E.D. Clark of the Chemistry Department of Cambridge University to act as a consultant and produce experimental urea-formaldehyde resins for evaluation by Aero Research Ltd. The encouraging test results led to the building of a pilot plant to produce such resins and they were given the name ‘Aerolite’. On 22 April 1937, after tests had been conducted on wooden propellers which were bonded using ‘Aerolite’ adhesive, the Air Ministry officially approved ‘Aerolite’ for use in aircraft. In May of that year it was exhibited for the first time at the Royal Aeronautical Society’s garden party held in the original Heathrow Airport hangar. Also, in May 1937, ‘Aerolite’ urea-formaldehyde adhesives were launched into the market place. Sales grew slowly and ‘Aerolite’ adhesive was initially struggling to pay its way. However, in 1939 a method for in-line quality assessment was introduced, so that a consistent product could be produced, and it was discovered that formic acid acted as a catalyst to give a significant improvement in the gap-filling abilities of the adhesive. Thereafter, the use of ‘Aerolite’ steadily expanded. The furniture industry was quick to realise the advantages that it offered, especially for increasing production rates, and during the war years ‘Horsa’ gliders and ‘Mosquito’ fighter-bombers, as well as other wooden aircraft and naval vessels, were produced using ‘Aerolite’ adhesives from biography article Biog. Mems. Fell. R. Soc. Lond., 46, 125, 2000 NORMAN ADRIAN DE BRUYNE, F.Eng 8 November 1904 - 7 March 1997 Elected F.R.S. 1967 BY ANTHONY J. KINLOCH, FREng. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2BX, UK
Love P-38, my father worked at Lockheed from 1939 until 1946 most of that time in an "experimental" department for Kelly Johnson. He loved it and I still have old Lockheed employee newsletters and there were hundreds of articles about P-38 S bringing pilots home with incredible damage or one engine shot out. One memorable article showed a 38 with the horizontal elevator and one rudder all shot up by ground AA, and the horizontal elevator was torn Loose on the port side.
Excellent video. My Dad was a Mosquito navigator based in India and then Burma in WWII. The problem they faced from mid-flight wing failures was caused by termites who liked eating the glue that held the aircraft together. The solution was to jack up the planes after every mission and lower the wheels into sawn off oil drums full of oil. They suffered no further wing failures thereafter.
My dad was also in Burma. He said (slightly tongue-in-cheek) that the Mosquito was useless because they fell apart. This upset mum, who worked in her grandfather's furniture factory making wooden wing parts. One thing you didn't mention is that the Mosquito is probably the most beautiful war machine ever built.
Excellent video... Nice to see the DH Mosquito featured For me it's the 'Mossie' because my grandfather F/O Frederick Dutton-Topping was an observer on them with 23 and 605 Squadrons. Completing two tours of Malta and losing his first Pilot Flt/Lt Tymm the day he flew back to the UK Sadly he was lost in March 1944 with Flt/Lt JR Beckett RAAF and are buried in a joint grave in the Old Leusden cemetery just outside Amersfoort in Holland - Lest we forget
It depends on what job you were being sent to do as to which aircraft you'd choose. For escort fighter work it's the P38 every time, but for bombing or nightfighter work you'd use the Mosquito. Suit the aircraft to the task.
For me the Mosquito. One reason which you did not mention is that as it was wooden, its radar signature was minimal and hard to track. Combine that with its speed and it is a great plane.
@@noahway7690wood returned a weaker signal naturally than metal. German radar struggled to get an accurate radar signal in the best of situations making the mosquito fighter bomber variant incredible in nighttime fights due to its radar picking up the enemy while the enemy couldn't often pick up the mosquito.
Perfect plane for 'Boom & Zoom' killer tactics . . . Could be heavily armed and wood survived battle damage much better than metal framing. Lasty, it had extra eyes in a crew of two.
*Correct, the Lightning was a Fighter/Bomber,* *while the British Mosquito was incapable of shooting down enemy aircraft. Making it simply a High-Speed Medium Bomber*
@@Ford_Raptor_R_720hp_V8 Except the Mosquito downed around 600 aircraft in just it's night fighting role. And while they are not manned aircraft, Mosquitoes shot down 600+ V-1's. Tho I do agree there's little reason to compare the P-38 and the Mosquito.
I'm a fan of both planes, so it would be very difficult for me to choose! As a small boy, my father, a former Navy (US) Engineer, used to take us boys to the various air shows put on by the military, featuring WW2 warbirds. During one such show, we boys were taken up in a P-38 for a brief flight. That was the noisiest, scariest, gosh-darned, EXCITING experience of my young life! We were strapped in behind the pilot, and I remember holding on for dear life as he took us up. He didn't do anything fancy, just up and circled the airfield. But it left quite the impression on me. So personally, I'd choose the Lightning, if only for that reason.
My grandfather was an engineer working for Boeing in Vancouver, BC, Canada, building Mosquito tailplanes (among others). He worked on a system using hot water bladders (heat and pressure) to allow the glues to cure faster and speed up production. I've got some blueprints of these planes in my files. They're works of art!
@@alexjh47 Just a shot , there is competing evidence One site has two factories in the UK using contaminated glue and another showing Mossies Jacked up and put in tubs of oil
Boeing in Vancouver also built 17 Blackburn Sharks which were renowned for their toughness and suitability for the rugged fjords of B.C. far away from service depots. They were withdrawn from service in 1944.
My late father, a B-17 pilot in the 8th Air Force, wanted to fly the mosquito in reconnaissance missions. But after completing 35 daylight missions in his heavy bomber, he was ready to go home.
God's Blessings and thanks go to your father for his service and bravery. As I'm sure you know, the 8th had suffered terrible losses; so badly, that daylight missions over Germany were stopped altogether in favor of night raids until adequate fighter escorts were finally provided later in the campaign. Your Dad definitely beats the odds, thankfully. My late father had served as a Sargeant in Patton's 3rd Army, serving in both Italy and Germany; ultimately being stationed in England where he met & married mother while on R&R at Henley-on-Thames. The Greatest Generation, for sure!!
This is eddie Harrison my mother worked in the aircraft factories during the second world war, And she always said the moscito was onr of the most beautiful aircrafts she saw.
The odds of him surviving 38 missions is insanely small. I feel sorry for the USAAF pilots getting saddled with B-17s, daylight raids, and no fighter support until the end of the war. Imagine taking that crew of 10, and give them 5 Mosquitos instead. With 2.5x the combined bomb load of that B-17.
@@timbirch4999 is that right? Not to mention that the Moquitos did precision low altitude strikes, and almost always hit their targets, and high altitude strikes rarely hit their targets. But hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it?
My Dad flew P-51s in WWII and Korea. In the mid '60s, for a birthday gift, I received a copy of the illustrated adventure 'Tintin and the Red Sea Sharks'. Featured in the plot and superb artwork was an aircraft called a Mosquito. I'd never heard of a Mosquito and thought maybe it was a fictional aircraft created for the story. To my 10 year-old eyes, it was a beautiful and fascinating airplane. Otherwise, I knew nothing about them until seeing them years later in books and videos like this. Thanks.
That scene where Tintin is strafed by a Mosquito while on a dow in the Red Sea is one of the coolest scenes in the whole amazing graphic novel series. I agree that the scene is a worthy ambassador of the plane. I looked it up subsequently and was amazed by the actual combat missions the Mosquito flew, such as the Amiens prison raid of February 18, 1944 where the Mosquitoes came in low and hot to drop their bombs to clear out all the walls and fences around the camp, freeing the imprisoned resistance fighters while other mossies took out the guard towers.. Straight out of Herve or Hollywood and even more so because it was real.
@@JoshuaFeldman You may recall, early in the story, the Mosquito makes it's first appearance when Tintin stumbles across one, parked in a secluded industrial section of his home-town, being sold on the black-market by a shady arms peddler, named Dawson. And yes - that Red Sea strafing scene is wonderful!
First thing I did after watching this video was to take out my copy of Tintin and check out the artwork. I remembered being impressed by it as a kid. I was not disappointed.
Billions of bilious, blue blistering barnacles in a thundering typhoon, I had forgotten about that scene from the book. Given that I hadn't read it in 50 plus years, I guess I can't be too upset. I loved the Tintin series and me, along with my six siblings anxiously awaited the next book in the series by Herge.
My Grandfather was one of the design team working with R E Bishop and De Havilland. The construction out of wood? That was his solution. It had to take the stresses and loads and yet still be light and strong. When I was a small boy, I met Cats Eyes Cunningham once, but had no idea who he was, when he came around for a cup of tea and cake. Great plane. Still can’t believe kids jumped in those planes and flew them the way they did. Brave men, brave parents.
It was always going to be the Mosquito. The Braddock and Bourne stories that appeared in the Victor comic when I was but a lad sealed my decision from the start.
Yup.. remember The Victor comic well and Matt Braddock. My father used to sneak read Braddock's adventures and then complain to me that It was a load of rubbish. As he was a tail end Charlie on Lancasters, I never argued his point of view on Braddock. Paddy Payne was my favourite from The Lion comic. Happy days.
@@Saxondog great days we thought we had it made when the Victor and river came out .Alf Tupper, JR Slade, with the little bits of mirror seen into the brim of his hat so they couldn't sneak up behind him. Those Days were ruined with the advent of trashy American comics
My neighbor's father flew the P-38 in WWII out of Palm Springs as a Flight Instructor ('Ernie'). I am not sure about the Mosquito's stats, handling, etc., but all in all, he said that the Lightning was like a sportscar in the sky. It was amazing all the planes he was certified on including the B-17, which he also spoke fondly of.
I think I would like a smaller version of the Mosquito, let's say a 75% replica, but still with the Merlins. I might call it the Hornet, and invite Eric Winkle Brown to test fly it ~
My Grandfather flew Pathfinder Mosquitoes for bomber command and after the war went to Australia to teach trainee Australian P38 pilots tactics and whatever else for the RAAF on behalf of the RAF … I’ve still got an ashtray with a cast aluminium P38 that he was presented with when he left Australia. It’s engraved but you can’t read what’s written on it because my Grandmother cleaned it so often.
My grandfather flew the Mossie for the RAAF in the Asian theatre and always said it was a joy to fly. The plane was jacked up and lowered into oil after each mission to keep out the termites.
My Grandfather was in the Hackney AFB and a master of the hook ladder rescue. I’d of rather flown than do what Pop did. Climbing 10 stories up the outside of a burning build with a 12 foot hook ladder, then come back down one handed with a terrified bombing victim on your shoulder while hoping the wall holds out until you get them all, and at NIGHT! Those AFB guys had hearts as big as the Graf Zeppelin. I’d take any combat roll rather than do hook ladder rescues. It’s a very under rated part of war history. They were very brave guys. Pop told me of one of his pals falling into one the old Oil Storage drums that dotted the East End along the River Lea marshes only 15 minutes after they had emptied it poor bugger. Had it been full he’d of likely lived.
An old girlfriends dad was a pilot on mozzies during the war. The stories were incredible and he spoke of fondness for the old girl. He also had loads of “photos” he took of the bombing runs in Norwegian fjords on German shipping ! Devastating. God I miss him
My cousin flew P-38 reconnaissance (thank you spell check) over Germany and would land in Italy sometimes. He told me that his only armament was a .45 pistol. With just cameras his total weight being low permitted his plane to fly faster and higher than any German fighters. He retired a Lieutenant General. Super nice guy. His widow is still with us at age 98. I sat in the cockpit of a P-38 at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, California. It was a cozy fit for this 200 pound Air Force veteran. At that same air museum my wife and I were privileged a couple of years ago to see a visiting Mosquito on display and also flying. The sound of those two engines gave me chills. Great museum.
My older brother, who was a prop airplane mechanic in the U.S. Air Force, told me that the compressibilty problem was due to the center of pressure moving back toward the tail during high-speed airflow. They had never anticipated this because this was the first 400+ mph plane they had built. As it was explained tro me, the air going over the tail was actually near-supersonic. It was solved by changing the wing geometry to keep the lift in bounds when diving. Quick-acting dive flaps were installed outboard of the engine nacelles of planes in the field and at the factory on ones being built.
Regarding your comment on armament on the Mosquito. I lived in Hamburg a few year ago in 1997 -2000, one of my Neighbours was a great man called George Wunderlich a former Luftwaffe test pilot who had flown amongst other things the Heinkel Salamander He117. I asked him about the effective armament of the British bombers, and he mentioned going up to spot the British bomber streams at night. he said that even a .303 could "star" his armour plated screen , thus he had to return to base, or they could quite happily puncture radiators and many other vital devices on the aircraft, George described this a being "hosed down" on. He was a a lovely man who entertained my questions about the war bless him.
Many years ago I was a police cadet at welwyn garden city and there is a mosquito museum nearby. But in those days they had one that was able to fly. Our drill Sgt was an ex mosquito pilot and when they flew that plane we ALL stopped. Whoever was flying that plane knew what he was doing. Our SOB drill sgt was turned into a moist eyed human being for about 30 mins.
The flyable Mosquito was RR299. She belonged to British Aerospace and was based at Hatfield, where she was built. She was seen flying around on a regular basis until, sadly, she crashed/destroyed in 1996. But not officially connected with the museum. The Mosquito Museum is further down the A1 at South Mymms and doesn't have an airstrip. Now called the De Havilland Museum I think. In fact the Mosquito was actually designed at this site, well away from the factory at Hatfield. At some point after the factory closed there was a plan to maintain some sort of runway at Hatfield and to move the museum there. Nothing came of that unfortunately.
An excellent museum. Not been for a while. First went in the early 80's. At first everything except the prototype was outdoors!They did try to get one of their Mossies airworthy after the crash. They had the parts of the crashed one in a container.
Both superb aircraft. Both had their flaws but were exactly what was needed at the time. They were built for different roles and that is reflected in their strengths and weaknesses. I don't think there's much to choose.
Love the Mossy a truly great aircraft Captain Eric Winkle brown test pilot who flew 487 different types of aircraft he said the Mossy was the greatest of all the aircraft he flew think he was the first pilot to ever land a twin engine aircraft on an aircraft carrier, think the Mossy had about 7 different roles it could Perform Phillip , and took part in some of the greatest missions in ww2 , my granddad was an R.A.F Erk in ww2 worked on the Mossy for a while, he said it was a fantastic aircraft, he even got to fly in one on a short trip to check the engines out , P38 was a great aircraft also, but those Alison engines at height were a let down , I wonder how much better it would have done had they put the Merlins in it like they did with the P51, swapping their Alison engines for Merlins and the improvement it made to that aircraft was a quantum leap .
Most of the work the mosquito could do , could be done by few other planes , the P-38 had very long range , but most of its work could be done by most allied fighter planes within their range
@@stuartpeacock8257 the USAAF had the choice of P-38 and Mosquito in ETO and MTO and chose to use both, for example the Mosquito for some pathfinding missions, weather reconnaissance and as a night fighter. It had the edge, certainly in later versions, over the quite uncommon droop snoot P-38 as a bomber in that it could carry HC bombs (I don't think any US bomber could carry them to Berlin) and a greater variety of navigational aids. As a pure fighter, the P-38 had the edge in a dog fight, even given its lighter armanent, and could carry a better load of bombs and rockets (at least in later versions) than the Mosquito. The FB. VI didn't really get the same sort of mid-life upgrades the P-38 or Mosquito NF or B versions got. In terms of photo recon, the Mosquito had the edge early on, nothing much to choose later. As a night intruder, the edge goes to the Mosquito, but the ultimate WW2 night intruder would be the P-61. The P-61 was a pretty average night fighter in WW2 as they didn't really sort out its performance for that role until the P-61C that was too late for WW2.
@@TheCaptain64 I agree, had the p38 had the Merlins, it would off won easily, but it didnt, ive had the pleaser of meeting GOD, as in Captain Eric Winkle Brown, twice, and attended his seminars three times, what a man!! Hes description of landing a Mossie on an aircraft carrier, at 10MPH under the stall speed, has and always be an incredible story, he was a terrific individual
I’d be proud to fly them both. Growing up I watched Squadron 633 and loved the Mosquito & Gregory Peck flew one in the Pacific Islands, in a movie called: Purple Plain. The P-38 held it’s own with the Luftwaffe (Robin Olds flew the P-38 with success) and again in the Pacific theater of war. America’s top scoring ace there, Richard Bong flew the P-38. Both are great aircraft to fly, I think the Mosquito was more versatile, going fast, pin point accuracy and a navigator to assist. There’s a saying, 2 pair of eyes are better then one. The P-38 pilot had a heavy workload. The Allies were lucky to have such aircraft. Cheers!
The beauty is that BOTH aircraft fought on the same side - that meant that strategists had the option of using them either in their optimal role or even both together where each could help enhance overall effectiveness by working cooperatively. .
@@willthorlin Perhaps, but explain to almost everyone else in the comments section why the P38 Lightning was withdrawn from the European and African Theatre of Operations almost entirely after their initial debut? They worked very well in the Pacific but the ETO and ATO were completely different air wars to the PTO.
Two other planes that don't seem to get nearly enough attention, and I suspect have a great story behind them, are the Bristol Beaufighter and the Junkers 88! You've done such a great job with this video, how about a video covering these two planes, not necessarily up against each other (or that could be fun!), but a discussion about their varied roles, and what contributions they made. The whole ground/sea attack/close air support/fighter bomber role never seems to get the accolades that the fighter blokes always got! I think there is scope for plenty more excellent videos there. Good luck!
@@MrGrim2u1987 too true, love it’s nickname of whispering death. Lots of stories about beaufighters flying so low they came back with tree branches attached to them.
Beau’s most outstanding quality was its uncanny ability to be ready at the right place and the right time. This is how a plane hastily designed reusing parts of the Beaufort bomber ended up serving from the end of the battle of Britain to the end of the war - it was the first radar equipped night fighter, and the backbone of anti-shipping in coastal command. Sure the Mosquito was sexier and ultimately superior BUT the Beau was there first to carry most of the action, when no other plane could do it.
Gene Roddenberry (creator of Star Trek),a B-17 pilot in the Pacific during the war, got the concept of the USS Enterprise (starship, not carrier) from the P-37 with its twin nacelles. He didn’t want the ship in his story to look like a rocket as was done in all the other sci-fi movies/shows of the era.
My dad was an RAF pilot during the war. His best friend was a navigator in a Mossie. On one sortie his pilot was killed but he managed to land the aircraft on his own.
Great video. I was born in 1941 but, in those days we did not have access to up to date film of the exploits of the RAF and USAF so I am especially glad to see this. Having worked within a few miles of the birthplace of the Mosquito, i have to go with it but am thankful to them both.
My father stuck on the Azores in WW II, spoke highly of the Mosquito's in use there. Also the Mosquito's carried undercover spies & agents deep into Axis territories, somehow secreted in the Bombay's. Their identities kept secret from the pilots who ferried them in the cover of darkness. The SOE & OSS agents.
@@doyouwanttogivemelekiss3097 Niels Bohr said he was dressed with more than one life jacket and laden down with flares. He recounts how a grinning pilot helped him into the bomb bay and said if they ran into trouble they would drop him. He was assured that a RN submarine would "try" to pick him up.
Lightning v's Mosquito. It's like Mustang v's Spitfire. All 4 were amazing period aircraft, absolute game changers and significant contributors to the Allies' victory.
My chief in the Surgical Pathology Department and the University Chief in London, Ontario, Canada was a navigator in Mosquitos in the RCAF in WWII. He said that the only drawback was accommodations in the plane were very crowded and on long missions very uncomfortable for the two man crew. As for the P-38, my reading about this great aircraft was the heating system. The cockpit was very cold and for some reason this was a problem that was never really solved. Great video, by the way.
My Grandfather flew from 1941-1945 and 1947-1969 in the RAF and RAAF. He flew the Spitfire V-XIV and 64 mission in the Mosquito VI and the Australian built mark 40 and 42. Like most, his favorite was the Spit IX, but his mission in the Mossie in the pacific towards the end of the war were a talking point.
So happy someone finally decided to do a video on how very similar these two aircraft were both had quite a number of variance and could enter change each others roles quite easily.
Both aircraft are fantastic and highly effective. The problem is the Mosquito was a bomber first and the bomber variant had higher speed in part thanks to the cockpit glass. The P-38 was well built and designed. Neither is really comparable to the other.
For the European theatre the Mozzy but it's the old saying "Horses for Courses" . Having a navigator aboard on long range missions would help by significantly reducing the workload, a late family friends husband flew in the Mosquito in WWII the bomber variant at some point going by the picture on her living room wall.
My Uncle flew the bomber variant of the Mosquito as a pathfinder, I asked him what it would have been like balling out. He thought the navigator would have been ok going through the hatch in the floor long as he held it steady, there was little room to manoeuvre, especially when wearing a flight suit. He would have exited via the roof hatch risking hitting the tail. The Mosquito became unstable when the control's had been left. He didn't think bailing out below 800/500 ft would have been possible. Thankfully he never needed to find out.
I own a yacht "MOZZY" that was fitted out by an ex WW2 Mosquito pilot and it has a few nods to the plane like its instruments layout ..apparently the plane and the boat were his two greatest passions..I feel a sense of honour keeping it looking its best ..and il visit the mosquito restoration link thanks 😊
Great video. I've been fascinated by the P-38 for a long time, enjoying watching one at Duxford's 'Flying Legends' show in 2012. It's actually my favourite of all the US WW2 fighters. On balance, with all the gremlins gone, it would be my aircraft of choice (says he who flew a Hawker Hunter T7 at Farnborough in 1963). Thanks again!
The P-38 was truly a pre-war design, and the fact that it remained in full production and competitive as a frontline fighter to the end of the conflict, in both ETO and Pacific, is a testament to the versatility and strength of the design. It would be interesting to see a late war version of the Lightning had Lockheed been permitted to take advantage of the NACA developments that the P-51, and P-63 enjoyed, such as radiators making better use of the Meredith Effect. Much of the improvements had already been submitted by Lockheed but rejected by the War Production Board because of the weeks it would take production off line to re-tool. For example, more elongated and streamlined pilot gondola and canopy to increase Mach number to over .70 (NACA calculation), a single piece blown bubble canopy, leading edge oil coolers, radiators and inter coolers - similar to the DH Hornet, possible armament options to include 6 x .50 cals or 4 x Hispanos, increased allowed Manifold pressure to 70” as tested stateside for 1,800 BHP as approved by USAAF with 150 octane, and paddle propellers.
And make it a tail dragger. Why? Gondola could then have a 150gal fuel tank and still enough room for 7 .50s or 3 20mm! Plus the underside of the Gondola could be a hard point for ANOTHER dropable fuel tank or bomb
Spectre you are right and it woulda been cool...but it still did a wonderful job in the pacific...except it would have sucked being really tall stuck in it all day!
Ah... you're singing to the choir here! Except I think you would have needed a different airfoil section in addition to lengthening the gondola to get that critical Mach number up and getting away from the compressibility issue, but excellent points one and all! And they weren't going to get anywhere without those paddle bladed props. What I don't understand though was there was still some low hanging fruit around reducing drag like sealing up those gun ports. I don't know why they didn't allow them to do that I don't think that could have been a difficult change
My third vid of yours, really enjoying your content! love both these planes, but the mosquito has it for me. Multi role, and one of the best looking planes built. The Lightning was pretty effective, one pilot used thrust vectoring in the Pacific, outstanding
Fantastic video and analysis!!! Dude, I'm an American kid who grew up in the (former) British West Indies, and my uncle was a Lanc pilot in the RAF! I'll say this... I always loved Mossies and later gained an appreciation for the Lintenings I've read (or saw) videos and stories about why the P-38 was never equipped with Merlins and... not knowing much about flight performance, I'll assume them to be true. I think they both did their respective jobs well, though I REALLY love the Mossies!!!
@@davee902 Best reference for all technical things Lightening related and WWII aircraft in general. The whole Merlin engine question always puzzled me but there were good reasons against it in the Lightning. You would not have seen any real performance improvement for all the reasons Greg cites. It's a must watch video on the topic... I never fully appreciated how important prop efficiency is... And the effects of parasitic drag.
Interesting note on bomb capacity... in the Pacific, P-38's were fitted with 2x2000lb bombs between the engines and central nacelle and carried 4x300lb bombs outboard of the engines for a total of 5200lbs of bombs. Of course this was for short distances, but amazing that the plane could get off the ground with this much bomb load... Certainly the Mosquito had the range while carrying heavy bomb loads internally and externally. Either way, it probably surprised the Germans and the Japanese to face aircraft which could fight and bomb as well as these two could.
Were there any mentions of the mossie being a stealth aircraft? Bexause of the wood construction, I'm told they emitted a much smaller radar signature than that of the metal sort.
This is a interesting topic of discussion as these two aircraft were ahead of their time but suffered from setbacks resulting in a delay in both production and wartime usage. With that said, these were two very different aircraft from the outset and this, the question of which aircraft would I prefer largely depends on the mission requirements. If I were in the European theatre of operations and on a bombing/raid or reconnaissance mission, hands down I'd choose the mosquito. Likewise, a night time mission would all for the mosquito. However, if I were in a dogfight, I'd have to go with the P38 as this plane was was better suited for this type of combat. In the Pacific, again, the type of mission would dictate which aircraft I would choose but due to the construction, I'd have to go with the P38. I have to note here that while the notion of a twin engine aircraft was the solution of higher speeds when these two aircraft were originally conceived, they both were equally matched and even outpaced by single engine aircraft by late 1943/44. If I were in the RAF and in a dogfight, the Spitfire MKlX would be my choice. Conversely, the FW190D would be my choice of a German aircraft. By 1945, I might go with the P47M as this was the fastest propeller aircraft in the European theatre at wars end and definitely more rugged survivable while sustaining damage from enemy aircraft. A honorable mention als goes out the the Tempest in late 1944/45 in lower altitude as this airplane was a beast in both air to air an air to ground combat. The Mustang had a greater range than any aircraft but it was a average dogfighter, in my opinion and it's numbers are inflated due to the lack of experienced German pilots by wars end. Not to say it wasn't a capable aircraft, for the P51 was one hell of a plane once the Merlin engine was introduced in a redesigned P51D model, I would simply prefer the aforementioned aircraft over the P51 and with regards to this video, the P38 and the Mosquito. In the Pacific, the Japanese Zero was outclassed rather quickly once the allies learned of it's shortcomings such as lack of armour and self sealing fuel tanks so as long as a pilot didn't get into a turning duel, the P38 and hellcat were more than capable. Again, the Mosquito was not designed as a pure dogfighter so in this roll, the P38 wins. But as in Europe, a night mission, a plane needed in a raid and or reconnaissance mission, my choice is the Mosquito. The are two very capable aircraft and need to be respected for the original intentions that they were designed for vs how they were eventually used. Simply stated, these were two of the finest aircraft the allies had and capable of just about any task asked of them. Truly remarkable.
Hey great Video! One thing I am surprised you didn't bring up about the Mosquit is that is had a low radar signature, this was due to it's wood construction. So it had a somewhat "stealthy" quality, one reason why they tended to fly very low to the ground (more difficult to detect by radar) and fly at night
The book by Jeremy Walsh regarding Mosquito operations in Burma and Jungle areas, gave considerable information on the structural problems with the aircraft. There were many issues with de-bonding and separations with the airframe. The same problems occurred with the post war DH Hornet, which shared the same construction.
2 amazing aircraft flown by even more amazing people. I personally have to agree with most of the comments. In other words, styles make fights. Regardless of whether you choose the plane from our shores, or choose the plane from our family across the pond, they and their aircrews are legends for eternity 👍
Ahh the forgotten legend, the wooden wonder. How this plane doesn't get the same respect from some people as the Spitfires and Lancasters I'll never know.
@@WALTERBROADDUS if you like aviation maybe, but I guarantee you 95% of joe bloggs in this country wouldn't name it if you asked them for five WW2 planes.
Great video. On the handling - the Mosquito has it when you consider it was able to operate at all altitudes very effectively. Low level or high altitude, it was a amazingly nimble. Much of the mosquitos bombs were internally housed, so its bomb load didn't effect it's speed or handling anywhere near as much as the Lightning.
The early Mossies like the shitfire and Hurrycanes used the Merlin 20 series that had the SINGLE STAGE supercharger, with a second SPEED on the compressor. The High Altitude Merlin 60 series 2 stage 2 speed di NOT exist until late 1942 early 1943, You CANNOT paint all Mossies with the same brush, same as the shitfire !! !
@@wilburfinnigan2142 Wilbur, WIlbur, Wilbur.... I didn't paint all mossies the with the same brush. Surely you're not besmerching the early spitfires? You know, the ones that kept aircraft carrier Great Britain open for the Americans to use their British deisgn spec Mustangs from (using their Allison, ahem, Rolls Royce Merlin engines) to protect their B17s which could not carry half the payload of the Lancaster? Next you'll be saying the AC Cobra was American (West Byfleet, AC: look it up). And the second stage supercharger didn't have to exist until 1942 in order to compete the awful American designs of the time, partly, because the Americans hadn't yet decided to enter the war... Careful when you put the Spitfire in disrespectfully in your crosshairs, you're likely to get out-turned and shot down.
@@wilburfinnigan2142 Where have you been? Fed up with posting under different names perhaps?. Back to a 'two-stage' name rather than a 'single-stage' one...
The Mosquito for me. They were based at RAF Rochford at one time and after the war I managed to get hold of one of the last 1/8" plywood sheets to make the curved frontage of a cocktail bar I was building in my Dad's shed.
Some 40 years ago I was windsurfing on the lake at Rutland in England, when a Mosquito flew low over my head. It was one of the most unexpected, astonishing and awesome things I have had the pleasure of seeing and listening to. I have always loved the design of the P38 Lightning and worked on the English Electric Lightning in the 1970s. The Mosquito was capable of so many different roles that it must come out on top, though the P38 was also a brilliant aircraft. Thanks for the video.
Mossies were purpose built for specific roles. Bombers had no guns and a max bomb load of 3,000 pounds except "some" modified late war, fighter bombers had a max bomb load of 1,500 pounds. Most P38's had 4 .50's and one 20mm and a min bomb load of 2,000 pounds. Late war models 4,000 pounds.
@David Barr DH98 Mosquito B. Mk IX 54 built 1,680 hp Merlin 72 engines - otherwise as B. Mk IV. 54 built. Could carry 2,000 lb internally, plus one 500 lb bomb or a drop tank under each wing. Some modified with bulged bomb bay doors for 4,000 lb bomb. BAE Mosquito page
About ten years ago, I was enjoying a day at the beach here on the Central Coast of California when I heard a loud rumble. I looked up and saw a P-38 making slow lazy es turns heading up the coast, going as slow as it could. About five minutes later, a small single engine Piper or Cessna came along flying flat out trying to catch up. My guess is that they were on their way to take in-flight pictures of the P-38 along the Big Sur coast. It was an incredible sight, and sound!
@@lverock In the early 1980s I worked and lived in Germany and spoke on many occasions to an old German guy who lived across the road. He told me that during the war he had been part of an anti aircraft outfit and had faced attacking P38s. He said that at the time, frightened was hardly the word to describe the way he felt. It is good to know that we had aircraft that could put the fear of God into the adversary.
My father was in the 23rd Fighter Group, USAAC, 4 years in Burma to Central China. He flew the P40B and C, the P-51C and the last 18 months of his tour he was the Commander of a P-38 squadron. Of all the planes he flew, the P-38 was his clear favorite and love. [Capt ret USAF 20th SOS, 27th Spl Ops Wing, 20 years, Nam 70-73]
Interestingly it wasn't until they really changed to zoom and boom tactics that it really came into its own. Forget about trying to get into a low-altitude turning fight... just dive down and light 'em up... than get away fast!
@@Mike-eq4ky Boom and Zoom tactics were always practiced by USAAC crews, even before the P-38 started arriving in numbers in the SWPTO. P-40s, P-39s and to an extent P-36’s on Dec 7, all used those tactics because Japanese aircraft were much more lighter and its wing loading allowed for such superior turning at lower speeds during dog fighting that it would have been suicide to do so with the heavier USAAC aircraft.
It is called TACTICS !!! Put away the egos and learn to used YOUR planes strength against the enemies weaknesses !!!! That was learned early on, flying tigers but it was hard for many pilots to accept !!
@@wilburfinnigan2142 Valid point. However , it is amazing how some P-38s pilots were able to hang with Japanese fighters in a dogfight. There are accounts of Lynch, Bong, and McGuire coming back from sorties with an airplane that was all bent up from the heavy maneuvering it was put through and basically had to be written off. There’s an interview of a 475th pilot here on RUclips who describes a P-38 that managed to turn with and then bring guns to onto a one-on-one with a Ki -43 that it had been turn-fighting. He said they both were low and slow from all of the maneuvering they had been doing until the P-38 pilot surprised the the Ki-43 by dropping its flaps and gear and bringing its guns to bare on the Japanese fighter.
Wow what a terrific piece of analysis and insight! I have tremendous affection for both, I don’t know which one has a higher service ceiling, wait, etc., but I think I’ll go with the Mossy… Ahem! Now that I’ve heard everything, I might be lonely, but I’d rather be going into battle in the P38…
Here's a detail that might blow some people's minds. One of the senior designers for the P-38 went on to become the head designer of the SR-71 (and the U-2), Kelly Johnson.
A pretty close contest so we need a tiebreaker: Engine sound - the music of the RR Merlins all day long. I first heard it as a kid over 50 years ago, and on the rare occasions I hear it today it still makes the hairs I have left on the back of my neck stand up.
I have heard Merlin engines (Packard licensed version of the Merlin) in the P51 here in the states, and have heard the twin Allison V1710's at an airshow once, and was mesmerized. by the sound. I have yet to hear twin merlin engines though. I would love to see these two aircraft in one airshow.
@@nealbowserjr4344 Most I have heard at once was six, a Lancaster escorted by a Hurricane and a Spitfire. For people my age and older, the Merlin was the sound of freedom.
There are not many people around who have heard a Lightning with the plumbed and working turbochargers, which would really affect the sound you would hear. The turbos really reduced the sound from the exhaust manifold, and the P-38 had a reputation of being a quieter aircraft, though probably not to the pilot who sat between the twin props.
Goering could be the tie breaker. In 1943 he said," It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminum better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again.".
As a civilian pilot, I simply point to the top two USAAF Aces of Aces - they both where P-38 drivers. Hence, since I was a boy, my favorite aircraft of all time. Bar none.
Spartan Air Services, circa 1953 tried to use a civilian P-38 Lighting for aerial photo mapping in the Canadian Arctic. Spartan found it was too much for a pilot to do the navigating, flying and working the camera for the photo mapping. They switched to the DeHavilland Mosquito and had a crew of 3 to do the work. The Mossie proved to be the right a/c for this job. My group recovered the wreckage of Mossie CF-HMR in 1996 and found tires from the Lighting that was used at Pelly Lake, NWT.
Spartan also had a Hornet for the same task. That actual aircraft is currently being made flyable. The main problem is finding some of the engine parts which were unique to Rolls-Royce Merlin 100 series...
And the Lightning was known to have a drafty cockpit and a notoriously weak heater for high altitude work. Was uncomfortably cold at higher altitudes , especially in Europe and North America
Very difficult to compare these two. On the face of it, with both being twin engined and high performance aircraft they may appear similar. But they are in fact very different. As a day fighter the P-38 is clearly superior. However, as a night fighter, pathfinder, low level fighter bomber and anti-shipping aircraft the Mosquito wins hands down. Both fantastic aircraft in their own rights.
The p38 could carry a torp aswell but it didn't need to because America had the best torpedo bomber of the war already. Also the p48 is a far better bomber, payload and range
@@thethirdman225 in every aspect of a fighter and an escort(except for night fighter but even the bf110 was a good night fighter) it was. As a close air support platform and fighter bomber, it was. Id muc rather fly a p47. Safer, faster, more durable, better protected, the list goes on and on
One of the best metal workers I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with was John Wiggins as a WW2 army ranger he had exposure to the Mosquito and he used to talk about it all the time.
My father was a naval aviator but never flew. He fought the Japanese from the very beginning starting in the Solomon's. He loved to see the P38s in support... So do I.
I have always admired the Mosquito for audacious design, superb performance, and dazzling speed. The Lightning arrived before the concept of operations empowered it to full effect. Like the F-4 Phantom, the P-38 was only a “fighter” if it was fighting its fight. At altitude, it was at its best. If I could pick a WW2 fighter, like many others who have posted here, I would say that it would depend on the mission. If the P-51 were not in the discussion, the Mosquito would be my preferred night fighter, principally because two heads are better than one. For high-altitude escort or long range special operations, the Lightning takes it. For low altitude dogfighting, the Spitfire, and for intercept, the ME262. This was a really wonderfully done video. Both visuals and narrative get excellent marks. Thank you for taking the time to put this together; the comments reveal the value of the effort.
@Caliban Rising - The P-38 did not “invariably flip on its back” if it loses an engine on takeoff, as you claim. It would roll onto its back if the pilot panicked and pushed the throttle forward on the good engine in an attempt to get attain more airspeed. The manual clearly states to reduce power on the good engine and adjust the trim. Lockheed test pilot Tony Levier performed many incredible aerial demonstrations with the P-38, perhaps the most famous being acrobatic maneuvers with one prop feathered including rolls into the dead engine, to dispel the myth that turning into the dead engine would kill you.
@theinspector1023 Uh, so one has to be a structural engineer to know that the Mosquito was wooden and the Lightning wasn't? Are you having illusions that the wooden frame was anywhere near as rigid as the stainless steel, flush-riveted, butt-jointed aluminum skin panels? Don't be a goof.
Excellent review of these iconic warbirds. Both planes were technical wonders for their time, but the armor, speed, and range lead me to side with the P38.
It's Apples and Oranges. They both are great multi-roll aircraft, but one is foremost a Fighter and the other a high-speed light Bomber/Attack aircraft.
I vividly recall seeing the Mosquitos used in the film 633 Squadron at an RAF Biggin Hill air show and very impressive they were to. I used to sometimes sail, race, out of Falmouth, Cornwall with the late Henry Ferris. Henry was a school teacher, an excellent helmsman and navigator, very amiable despite his considerable reputation for winning races. A day came when in light airs we the crew had time to chat and exchange stories. It was in that unlikely setting I learned that Henry, a diminutive 5 foot 2 inches had flown Mosquitoes during WW 2 . He said he had to sit on a cushion to be able to see where he was going...
I've got a shifting spanner that flew from the united kingdom to New Zealand in the tool box of the chief engineer of our mossies after the war. They flew them down without loss skipping from base to base, he said it was one of the most memorable things he ever did. He had missed out on getting to fly a spitfire by 8 days. Cursed them for ending the war right then.
9:28 this is because the British ordered all of their p38's without counter-rotating props. American versions had counter rotation to nullify the effects of torque-roll, even if an engine failed during takeoff, the other prop was rotating in the proper direction to be much more manageable. Plus, they could roll to each side equally well, unlike the British versions.
I'd say the P-38 no problem .. The Mosquito was a heavy assault strike aircraft. P-38 was a high altitude heavy fighter bomber interceptor and was much more versatile and technology advanced .. I'd also say the A-20 and B-26 over the mosquito as well. My grandfather flew the P-40, P-38 & P-47 in combat with the TAC. He preferred the P-38 as a gun platform and said it was more durable.
I'd be curious about designs of both the mosquito and the P-38 with modern materials (carbon fiber and aluminum) avionics, and gas turbine engines. Even if they didn't make it into a military design, but I bet they would make amazing civilian aerobatics and racers.
My dad knew one of the P-38 pilots that few to intercept Yamamoto. When I was small he took me to meet the guy. At that point he was pretty old. He said had been shot down 3 times in the war, and he still had burn scars on his hands and arms that he got when he ended up in the ocean with burning fuel on the surface.
All of the pilots who flew that operation and survived (one P-38 did not return) were immediately sent home to the U.S., because being part of the mission made them aware of the U.S. breaking the Japanese military codes and reading its messages. That made them an unacceptable security risk in combat. So anyone on that mission would not have flown another combat mission. Rex Barber was accepted as the guy who shot down the Betty which Yamamoto was in. Thomas Lanphier claimed the victory originally.
@@AlanRoehrich9651 Not true about the pilots not flying more combat missions. Rex Barber went on to fly P-38's in China for the 449th Fighter squadron(He was shot down and rescued by Chinese civilians). And the operation leader(John W. Mitchell) later flew P-51 Mustangs on long-range missions over Japan.
I do appreciate both aircraft, especially in their respective "special mission" rolls which could only be done by one or the other of these two aircraft. But if having to choose between them I'd go with the P-38 Lightning. The advantaged defensive armament would be nice to have in, say, an ambush that negated a speedy escape. Plus, it seems that many of the P-38's failings could be (and were) overcome by specified training, whereas most of the Mosquito's shortcomings (admittingly perspectivally limited) could not. Of course, the Mosquito's bailout advantage is nice, but either way, who wants to have to bailout of a damaged airplane? As well, I do have one more bit of a bias towards the P-38, that being that I live less than five miles from March ARB (Air Reserve Base,) which is, of course, the formerly designated "March Field" from which the very first P-38 Lightning took off from on its maiden (and doomed) flight.
For me it's the Mossie, as I fly my microlight from a small airfield right behind the De Havilland aircraft museum at London Colney in Herts, UK. The museum is literally right next door to Salisbury Hall, where the aircraft was designed, and the one and only prototype is still there in the museum, only a few yards from where it was concieved and drawn. They actually have three airframes there in the main hangar/hall. One is the aforementioned prototype, which is now painted in yellow and camo, but which used to be painted red. There's also a bomber version, and a fighter bomber version. Interesting facts about the Mossie that you may not be aware of: The prototype was actually the fastest of all of those made. It had slightly shorter wings that were squared off at the ends. This wasn't by design, but came about because one day as the plane was being towed out of the hangar, one wingtip caught the hangar door. Geoffrey De Havilland (the test pilot) told the ground crew to quickly saw off the broken bit and tidy it up, then cut the other wing to match it. When it was all done about an hour later, he flew it! Another thing about the Mossie prototype that was different from the production aircraft was shorter engine nacelles. This meant the ailerons and/or flaps, were uninterrupted along the trailing edge of the wings. However, the plane was found to fishtail a bit at high speed, so rather than employing a larger tail fin, they made the engine nacelles longer and shortened the flaps for all production aircraft. This cured the problem, so the Mossie didn't have a large sweeping tail design like a B17, or the forward extension to the tail fin like a later P51s.
@@BobHUK that's a neat bit of extra info on the Mossie, especially the part about the (prototype) wings being cut. I imagine the De Havilland aircraft museum is pretty amazing. There's an air museum as well next to the airbase (March Reserve) that is pretty impressive. A lot of varied aircraft displayed and other historic aircraft memorabilia, this includes a section of canvas from a fighter of WWI's "La Fayette Escadrille," the American volunteers air combat squadron that fought under the command of the French Air Corps early in the war (before the U.S. officially joined the war effort). I'm an avid fan of aeronautical history, a lot of that comes from being born into an USAF family. Again, thanks for the interesting extra trivia about the Mosquito and what-not. If there's anything else you'd like to share about that or any other aircraft history, I wouldn't mind reading about it. 😎👍
The P-38 did not have dive brakes. It has dive recovery flaps, which did not slow the aircraft. They changed the shape of the wing, and created a "pitch up", allowing the P-38 to reach higher speeds in dives and still recover easier. Some pilots did use the dive flaps to give that momentary pitch up, in order to pull for a shot.
@@christianbuczko1481 the dive brakes weren't so much for dive bombing as they were for high-altitude dive recovery, as the P-38's mach limit was the big issue for its dive performance, which only becomes a problem up high where mach limits happen at lower speeds than IAS limits. the P-38 was a bomber secondarily, they weren't making changes on it to make it bomb better.
My memory is a bit vague but an example of glue failing might be the wartime crash, at Bankstown N.S.W., of an Australian-built Mosquito that was (I think) attributed to spar delamination. Apparently, the original casein glue was vulnerable to microbiological degradation in warm, humid conditions; a problem that was solved by the replacement of casein with phenol-formaldehyde adhesive. Another issue encountered in RAAF Pacific service was damage to the plywood skin due to abrasive debris thrown up by tyres and prop-wash when aircraft were operated from sand and coral surfaced airstrips... That's the best I can recall from research for a uni essay I wrote 23 years ago :D
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Imagine if the P-38 replaced that lousy Allison, with Brit's much more reliable, and robust Merlin. Ohhh-ahhh She'd have been a Diamond in the skies for sure. As was the Mossie.
Exactly. What he said.
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Correct me if I’m wrong but I remember seeing a documentary about the P-38 that stressed the point that the reason the RAF rejected the aircraft was because the United States would not allow our P-38s to be fitted with the supercharger that they had on their aircraft. I suppose technically you could say that it was an engine issue that caused the RAF to discontinue using the Lightning but in my opinion it was really about the fact that without the supercharger the aircraft was about as much use as a chocolate tea 🫖 pot.
you are 110% correct @@allandavis8201
I worked with Henry Ledrer in the 70s at Fairchild Republic. He was a WWII Ace who flew P-38s, P-47s, and P-51s. He liked the 38 for its twin engines, the 51 for its handling, but said he would only want to go back in a P-47 because it could take more punishment than the other two combined and still get you home safe.
There you go. enough said
Fantasy land... Then came the A-10 Thunderbolt... Don't get me wrong, I love the old WWII fighter aircraft. if I was back in WWII, get me in that damn Forked Tailed Devil P-38 and let me get to work! Beautiful, Graceful, Powerfull, handle anything, and fiire-power to back it all up! Yet, we're in 2024 now.... Gone are the good 'ol days where pilots were heros flying a crap load of metal, firing real ammo and handling real G-Forces... No, not today, It is about the arm-chair computer pilot (Drones) that doesn't have a clue what these men of past went through. No realization of what it physically took, blood, sweat, tears and a lot of bordom flying an aircraft into battle. Then, once in battle, shit-n-piss your pants, sweating, G-forces, aiming, protecting your fellow pilots, all the while checking your guages and fuel (amongst a whole lot of other factors) and doing your best to survive while fulfilling your ordered duty. It is just do different, yet, I have so much respect for WWII figher pilots than I have have for today's computer pansies... Sigh.
@@QuintenStanford-og9seexcuse me? Why does no one mention that the amazing P47 could cruise at 42,000 feet, and look down at the ME 109’s and FW 190s, well below them at 33K and 34K’? Those Luftwaffe pilots could only look up and see their enemy 8000 feet or more above them and say their prayers…
@@BrokenandRestored If you only knew.
@@BrokenandRestored As a Mission Crew Commander Air Battle Manager on AWACS, I can tell you the A-10 Warthog has some limitations too. It has no radar and its a sitting duck for any other air adversary. I have to have dedicated fighter CAPS just to keep the CAS assets like the A-10 safe. Otherwise the A-10 can't be used unless we have air supremacy, let alone superiority.
My late father changed from instructor to PR Mossie and also had a lightning which he flew as CO when in the Med. Overall he favoured the Mosquito. It got him through on several shoot up occasions and he survived two engine failures on take off. Out through the canopy of course. One mission from Poland saw a dead engine and unknown in the air, virtual loss of the tail from enemy shrapnel. The wooden construction held firm and one engine got them back He and his navigator felt it to be a safe plane. His log books tell many stories. God Bless all the brave pilots and crew of WW2.
By the end of the war, the Mossie had the best crew-survival rate in Bomber Command.
While it's true wood is more flammable than aluminum, it burns at a lower temperature and doesn't flow like water when it is aflame. (See HMS Sheffield, Falklands war.)
That gave the crews more time to evacuate or bail out.
Not gonna lie, if I had flown two aircraft and narrowly escaped terrible things in one of them on several occasions...
...there's a good chance I would conclude I wanna fly the OTHER one. 🤣
Mosquito seems to have been less susceptible to explosive bullets. They punch through before exploding on the other side.
Two Mossies could carry considerably more bombs than one B-17 but using 4 crew vs 10. Who knows why the top brass failed to notice this small fact and take action.
@@Dave5843-d9m No they couldn't!!! Standard load on most Mosquito Bombers was 2000lb (4x 500lb bombs). To get anywhere in Germany past the Ruhr required drop tanks which took out the 1000lb of bombs on the wings. Plus the aircraft was not faster than any of the single engine German Fighters by 1943. A lot of Mosquito Bomber Operations in daylight in 1942 over Germany and Europe suffered a 1 in 6 loss / sortie rate as any raid saw at least one Mosquito shot down by Flak or Fighters. What really saved the Mosquito as a Bomber was the OBOE pathfinder mission in early 1943 which were flown at night and at 30,000 feet, but Bomber Command only had three squadrons of the aircraft between 1942 and late 1943 (and only two of them operated OBOE), the other Squadron was used mostly to lay Window clouds until 1944 when they got a few aircraft fitted with H2S and could do Marking beyond the range of OBOE stations in the UK. The vast majority of Bomber Command Mosquito bomber sorties were flown in 1944 / 45 when the Luftwaffe was beaten, they were done at High Altitude and at mostly at night. The Mosquito only dropped a total of just under 1000 Cookies on Germany in the whole War (Around 1770 Bomber versions were built in total in the whole production run for the aircraft). Modifying the aircraft to carry the 4000lb Blockbuster Safely caused a lot of problems for De Haviland which took nearly a year to solve and only a few squadrons in No 8 PFF Group actually used the weapon on a regular basis.
@@SuppressedOfficial Sadly it didn’t happen to you so we have to read your silly comment that speaks nothing of the skill of the pilot
My Mother worked shifts at a De Havilland assembly plant at Downsview, Ontario, Canada during the war helping to make Mosquitos, which were apparently shipped in a knock-down state to the UK. She told us that airframes were never on the same ship as the engines. In case either one was lost in the Northern Atlantic, they only lost part of the final assembly rather than complete aircraft. I have photos of her in dungarees and bandanas - my own Rosie the Riveter!
*Respect*
My grandfather was the general manager at Myles Aircraft in England during the war.
When my mum married a Canadian paratrooper and came to Ontario, my grandparents moved to Etobicoke and my grandfather went to work at a place called Malton for a shop called A.V. Row.
He retired the day the Diefenbaker government killed the CF-105 Arrow. 😢
@@michaelhilborn4204 the cancellation was a total disgrace - a day the nation will forever mourn. Many of the engineers went down and joined NASA. The old town of Malton, in NW Metropolitan Toronto, is the site of YYZ, Toronto's Pearson International Airport and many former aircraft companies.
Your grandmother was one of the great many "war brides" our guys brought home, proving that Canada actually won the war! Bless them all. ❤
What a lovely story. I hope you can find a way to share those photos with us.
@@coldlakealta4043 Actually, my mum is a war bride, not my grandmother.
She is 96 and still very much with us. 🙂
My grandfather was offered a position with NASA but he turned it down.
The only reason he came to Canada in the first place was to be near his daughter and grandchildren.
My mum's only brother was a naval aviator in the Fleet Air Arm.
His Fairey Swordfish was shot down during an attack on the Bismarck.
He was one week shy of his 21st. birthday.
My father flew the P38 Lightening in the South Pacific theater. I have pictures of some Betty Bombers sitting on the white sanded beaches. Also, of trip lines he and others found on rendezvous. He told me that having to give up flying was one of the hardest things he has had to do. So, he ,"baby sat", some P51 and other planes after the war ended in Japan, until he needed to return to Texas, and finish college at UT Austin. Always, a pragmatic man, and a loving father. Still have his flight suit and dress uniform.
Both marvelous aircrafts but for the engines and the all around capabilities I would take the Mosquito
My Grandfather flew from 1940-46 he was shot down three times in Spitfire 5s, he flew 78 missions in Mosquito, he loved Spitfire 9 and said the ground crew for his third tour with Mosquito were able to give the engines some extra pep that saw him outrun 109G on numerous occasions, but in his own words his Mossie was an unusually fast kite 😊
Did he have a biography/diary?
I believe Nitrous Oxide was injected into the merlins to give short term power..According to John Cunningham he caught and shot down FW 190 at night ...the german pilot traveling at what he thought ''They will never catch me at this speed''....
I thought the same thing. Memoirs????
Thanks Alan! I have no doubt he outmatched the Gustavs, german pilots complained about being powerless against the Mossie.
I am sure he was glad to be off Spit Vs and get on IXs. From everything I've read, squadron morale went way up upon delivery. Going from disadvantage to relative parity against 190s is a big jump.
My father flew both on operations as a Master Bomber. Here are his first impressions of both types
19 July 1944
Target: Thiverny - V1 Storage site
A/C Mosquito DZ521
S/L C.B.Owen, F/L D.Bowes
Time: 3.00
“First trip in Mossie, and my first daylight op. Took off an hour after the Lancs and caught
them up at the French coast much to the joy of Don, who’d had enough of sitting behind
the curtain in a Lanc and twiddling knobs. France looked very peaceful in the afternoon
sun, and I even caught a glimpse of Paris in the distance. Heavy flak at the target, but the
Lancs caught it while we watched. Left the Lancs at the coast and beetled back to base flat
out. Arrived at dusk and beat up the mess, much to the consternation of the gang at the
bar. Decided that a Mossie is definitely a safe way of going to war.”
1 August 1944
Target: Ourville - V1 launching site
A/C Lightning 424360
S/L C.B.Owen
Time: 3.30
“First trip in the Lightning, Curious sensation flying above cloud with no navigator to tell me
where we were (or should be). Thankful to pick up the Lancs on the South Coast as cloud
was getting very thick. 10/10 over the target so I called the show off and turned for home.
Map-read back from Selsey Bill, which I found a bit of a strain after relying on a crew to do
the dirty work. Found the Lightning very quiet and comfortable after a Lanc or a Mossie.”
Much RESPECT!
Fantastic!
They are both good planes because he made it home! It seems like he liked flying the Lighting better, but missed the company from the Mossie
@@samuelchan699 Flying without a co-pilot to navigate was a lot harder in the pre-Garmin/IPad days…😂
Wonderful description
My uncle who flew the Mossie told me the problem with the SE Asia Mossies was due to the resins breaking down in the heat and humidity. This was resolved by using different resins in the Australian built Mosquitoes.
The Mossy used casein based wood glue very close to Elmer's brand white glue. Casein comes from the slaughtering process of cows. It is used as a very low-quality cheese substitute on some cheap frozen pizzas , not for nutritional value which is low to zero. A pizza has lots of ingredients that provide calories from grease, flour, tomatoes, and other ingredients. I can name one company that cranks out casein pizzas. Evil company.
I think Aerolite was the replacement synthetic adhesive system used later. Not quite so tasty to creepy crawlies or indeed soluble!😂
I believe it was a formaldehyde based adhesive that did the tropics operational trick see
Handbook of Adhesives and Sealants
Volume 1, 2005, Pages 215-347
Handbook of Adhesives and Sealants
Chapter 5 Aerospace: A pioneer in structural adhesive bonding
John Bishopp
abstract only read
Abstract
This chapter falls, quite logically, into four distinct sections. The first deals with wooden aircraft from the first heavier-than-air machines through to the mid-1940s. Here animal-based adhesives were a natural choice for bonding wood; furniture makers had been using them for centuries. This section ends with the success story of the de Havilland Mosquito; a wooden airplane held together with a urea-formaldehyde (U/F) glue - one of the first truly synthetic adhesives.
. . .
end of story?
In any event, in early 1937, de Bruyne commissioned a Dr. R.E.D. Clark of the
Chemistry Department of Cambridge University to act as a consultant and produce experimental
urea-formaldehyde resins for evaluation by Aero Research Ltd. The encouraging test results led
to the building of a pilot plant to produce such resins and they were given the name ‘Aerolite’. On
22 April 1937, after tests had been conducted on wooden propellers which were bonded using
‘Aerolite’ adhesive, the Air Ministry officially approved ‘Aerolite’ for use in aircraft. In May of
that year it was exhibited for the first time at the Royal Aeronautical Society’s garden party held
in the original Heathrow Airport hangar. Also, in May 1937, ‘Aerolite’ urea-formaldehyde
adhesives were launched into the market place. Sales grew slowly and ‘Aerolite’ adhesive was
initially struggling to pay its way. However, in 1939 a method for in-line quality assessment was
introduced, so that a consistent product could be produced, and it was discovered that formic acid
acted as a catalyst to give a significant improvement in the gap-filling abilities of the adhesive.
Thereafter, the use of ‘Aerolite’ steadily expanded. The furniture industry was quick to realise the
advantages that it offered, especially for increasing production rates, and during the war years
‘Horsa’ gliders and ‘Mosquito’ fighter-bombers, as well as other wooden aircraft and naval
vessels, were produced using ‘Aerolite’ adhesives
from biography article
Biog. Mems. Fell. R. Soc. Lond., 46, 125, 2000
NORMAN ADRIAN DE BRUYNE, F.Eng
8 November 1904 - 7 March 1997
Elected F.R.S. 1967
BY ANTHONY J. KINLOCH, FREng.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College of Science, Technology
and Medicine, Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2BX, UK
@@donaldblankenship-ph1un which company mate ?. I like pizza so want to make sure I don't buy their products.
Love P-38, my father worked at Lockheed from 1939 until 1946 most of that time in an "experimental" department for Kelly Johnson. He loved it and I still have old Lockheed employee newsletters and there were hundreds of articles about P-38 S bringing pilots home with incredible damage or one engine shot out. One memorable article showed a 38 with the horizontal elevator and one rudder all shot up by ground AA, and the horizontal elevator was torn Loose on the port side.
No opinion about the Mosquito? Typical American.
Excellent video. My Dad was a Mosquito navigator based in India and then Burma in WWII. The problem they faced from mid-flight wing failures was caused by termites who liked eating the glue that held the aircraft together. The solution was to jack up the planes after every mission and lower the wheels into sawn off oil drums full of oil. They suffered no further wing failures thereafter.
OH MY! I'd heard about glue issues but didn't think about a termite problem! Talk about gremlins...
Wow!
My dad was also in Burma. He said (slightly tongue-in-cheek) that the Mosquito was useless because they fell apart. This upset mum, who worked in her grandfather's furniture factory making wooden wing parts.
One thing you didn't mention is that the Mosquito is probably the most beautiful war machine ever built.
I love how youtube produces little bits of anecdote like this.
Amazing little snippet of information. Thanks .
Excellent video... Nice to see the DH Mosquito featured
For me it's the 'Mossie' because my grandfather F/O Frederick Dutton-Topping was an observer on them with 23 and 605 Squadrons.
Completing two tours of Malta and losing his first Pilot Flt/Lt Tymm the day he flew back to the UK
Sadly he was lost in March 1944 with Flt/Lt JR Beckett RAAF and are buried in a joint grave in the Old Leusden cemetery just outside Amersfoort in Holland - Lest we forget
Lest we forget, mate. 😢 Lest we forget! 🇬🇧🇺🇲
It depends on what job you were being sent to do as to which aircraft you'd choose. For escort fighter work it's the P38 every time, but for bombing or nightfighter work you'd use the Mosquito. Suit the aircraft to the task.
The P-38M was a great night fighter.
@@treyhelms5282 And the P-38J Droop Snoot was a great bomber, too.
@@treyhelms5282 Mosquito was better
and everything else
@@daniellastuart3145 as a fighter or night fighter, in what way?
For me the Mosquito. One reason which you did not mention is that as it was wooden, its radar signature was minimal and hard to track. Combine that with its speed and it is a great plane.
Wow, they were using stealth composites in WW2?
After watching instruction videos on the 38, I think surely the Mosq would have been easier.
@@noahway7690wood returned a weaker signal naturally than metal. German radar struggled to get an accurate radar signal in the best of situations making the mosquito fighter bomber variant incredible in nighttime fights due to its radar picking up the enemy while the enemy couldn't often pick up the mosquito.
Perfect plane for 'Boom & Zoom' killer tactics . . . Could be heavily armed and wood survived battle damage much better than metal framing. Lasty, it had extra eyes in a crew of two.
my thoughts too on the mosquito @ simonkenrick
Different planes and different missions . Personally ? I'm exceeding grateful for both them , and the amazing crew who flew them .
My thoughts too.
Exactly. In the Pacific, it was P-38 Lightning flight that took down the airplane carrying the best strategist the Japanese had: Admiral Yamamoto.
Give me the beloved MOSSIE all the way !!!
*Correct, the Lightning was a Fighter/Bomber,*
*while the British Mosquito was incapable of shooting down enemy aircraft. Making it simply a High-Speed Medium Bomber*
@@Ford_Raptor_R_720hp_V8 Except the Mosquito downed around 600 aircraft in just it's night fighting role. And while they are not manned aircraft, Mosquitoes shot down 600+ V-1's. Tho I do agree there's little reason to compare the P-38 and the Mosquito.
I'm a fan of both planes, so it would be very difficult for me to choose! As a small boy, my father, a former Navy (US) Engineer, used to take us boys to the various air shows put on by the military, featuring WW2 warbirds. During one such show, we boys were taken up in a P-38 for a brief flight. That was the noisiest, scariest, gosh-darned, EXCITING experience of my young life! We were strapped in behind the pilot, and I remember holding on for dear life as he took us up. He didn't do anything fancy, just up and circled the airfield. But it left quite the impression on me. So personally, I'd choose the Lightning, if only for that reason.
My grandfather was an engineer working for Boeing in Vancouver, BC, Canada, building Mosquito tailplanes (among others). He worked on a system using hot water bladders (heat and pressure) to allow the glues to cure faster and speed up production. I've got some blueprints of these planes in my files. They're works of art!
Hell yeah!
Were they the ones that fell apart in Burma
@@jacktattis No, they went to Europe for the RCAF.
@@alexjh47 Just a shot , there is competing evidence One site has two factories in the UK using contaminated glue and another showing Mossies Jacked up and put in tubs of oil
Boeing in Vancouver also built 17 Blackburn Sharks which were renowned for their toughness and suitability for the rugged fjords of B.C. far away from service depots. They were withdrawn from service in 1944.
My late father, a B-17 pilot in the 8th Air Force, wanted to fly the mosquito in reconnaissance missions. But after completing 35 daylight missions in his heavy bomber, he was ready to go home.
God's Blessings and thanks go to your father for his service and bravery. As I'm sure you know, the 8th had suffered terrible losses; so badly, that daylight missions over Germany were stopped altogether in favor of night raids until adequate fighter escorts were finally provided later in the campaign. Your Dad definitely beats the odds, thankfully. My late father had served as a Sargeant in Patton's 3rd Army, serving in both Italy and Germany; ultimately being stationed in England where he met & married mother while on R&R at Henley-on-Thames. The Greatest Generation, for sure!!
This is eddie Harrison my mother worked in the aircraft factories during the second world war, And she always said the moscito was onr of the most beautiful aircrafts she saw.
The odds of him surviving 38 missions is insanely small.
I feel sorry for the USAAF pilots getting saddled with B-17s, daylight raids, and no fighter support until the end of the war.
Imagine taking that crew of 10, and give them 5 Mosquitos instead. With 2.5x the combined bomb load of that B-17.
Americans where lucky they could go home. My uncle did a tour of 30 for RAF Bomber Command. He came from New Zealand and he wasn't allowed to go home.
@@timbirch4999 is that right? Not to mention that the Moquitos did precision low altitude strikes, and almost always hit their targets, and high altitude strikes rarely hit their targets. But hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it?
My Dad flew P-51s in WWII and Korea. In the mid '60s, for a birthday gift, I received a copy of the illustrated adventure 'Tintin and the Red Sea Sharks'. Featured in the plot and superb artwork was an aircraft called a Mosquito. I'd never heard of a Mosquito and thought maybe it was a fictional aircraft created for the story. To my 10 year-old eyes, it was a beautiful and fascinating airplane. Otherwise, I knew nothing about them until seeing them years later in books and videos like this. Thanks.
That scene where Tintin is strafed by a Mosquito while on a dow in the Red Sea is one of the coolest scenes in the whole amazing graphic novel series. I agree that the scene is a worthy ambassador of the plane. I looked it up subsequently and was amazed by the actual combat missions the Mosquito flew, such as the Amiens prison raid of February 18, 1944 where the Mosquitoes came in low and hot to drop their bombs to clear out all the walls and fences around the camp, freeing the imprisoned resistance fighters while other mossies took out the guard towers.. Straight out of Herve or Hollywood and even more so because it was real.
@@JoshuaFeldman You may recall, early in the story, the Mosquito makes it's first appearance when Tintin stumbles across one, parked in a secluded industrial section of his home-town, being sold on the black-market by a shady arms peddler, named Dawson. And yes - that Red Sea strafing scene is wonderful!
First thing I did after watching this video was to take out my copy of Tintin and check out the artwork. I remembered being impressed by it as a kid. I was not disappointed.
Billions of bilious, blue blistering barnacles in a thundering typhoon, I had forgotten about that scene from the book. Given that I hadn't read it in 50 plus years, I guess I can't be too upset. I loved the Tintin series and me, along with my six siblings anxiously awaited the next book in the series by Herge.
My Grandfather was one of the design team working with R E Bishop and De Havilland. The construction out of wood? That was his solution. It had to take the stresses and loads and yet still be light and strong. When I was a small boy, I met Cats Eyes Cunningham once, but had no idea who he was, when he came around for a cup of tea and cake. Great plane.
Still can’t believe kids jumped in those planes and flew them the way they did. Brave men, brave parents.
Brave men. Mosquito was the wooden wonder. Made of wood. 4x20 mm cannon and 4 x 7,7 mm machine guns. the Lightning was little faster .
@@MegaGronis HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
It was always going to be the Mosquito. The Braddock and Bourne stories that appeared in the Victor comic when I was but a lad sealed my decision from the start.
Jo Tony, great stories, no matter how he got shot up, Jim was straight back in the air next day!
Matt Braddock VC and bar! Ah, me lost youth...
Yup.. remember The Victor comic well and Matt Braddock. My father used to sneak read Braddock's adventures and then complain to me that It was a load of rubbish.
As he was a tail end Charlie on Lancasters, I never argued his point of view on Braddock.
Paddy Payne was my favourite from The Lion comic. Happy days.
@@Saxondog great days we thought we had it made when the Victor and river came out .Alf Tupper, JR Slade, with the little bits of mirror seen into the brim of his hat so they couldn't sneak up behind him. Those Days were ruined with the advent of trashy American comics
Meant Rover
My neighbor's father flew the P-38 in WWII out of Palm Springs as a Flight Instructor ('Ernie'). I am not sure about the Mosquito's stats, handling, etc., but all in all, he said that the Lightning was like a sportscar in the sky. It was amazing all the planes he was certified on including the B-17, which he also spoke fondly of.
Why answer if you can't compare?
Given my choice I'll take one of each. Love 'em both.
I think I would like a smaller version of the Mosquito, let's say a 75% replica, but still with the Merlins. I might call it the Hornet, and invite Eric Winkle Brown to test fly it ~
Westland whirlwind??
You can’t put a 4000 lb bomb in that !
Er ... Westland . And the Hornet would have been all over it. Not surprising really . It came along much later .
@@michellebrown4903 grrr bloody phone!
The late farmer next door to me in the Yorkshire Dales was a Hornet pilot in his youth. I only found out after he had passed away.
My Grandfather flew Pathfinder Mosquitoes for bomber command and after the war went to Australia to teach trainee Australian P38 pilots tactics and whatever else for the RAAF on behalf of the RAF … I’ve still got an ashtray with a cast aluminium P38 that he was presented with when he left Australia. It’s engraved but you can’t read what’s written on it because my Grandmother cleaned it so often.
My grandfather flew the Mossie for the RAAF in the Asian theatre and always said it was a joy to fly. The plane was jacked up and lowered into oil after each mission to keep out the termites.
My Grandfather was in the Hackney AFB and a master of the hook ladder rescue.
I’d of rather flown than do what Pop did. Climbing 10 stories up the outside of a burning build with a 12 foot hook ladder, then come back down one handed with a terrified bombing victim on your shoulder while hoping the wall holds out until you get them all, and at NIGHT! Those AFB guys had hearts as big as the Graf Zeppelin. I’d take any combat roll rather than do hook ladder rescues. It’s a very under rated part of war history. They were very brave guys.
Pop told me of one of his pals falling into one the old Oil Storage drums that dotted the East End along the River Lea marshes only 15 minutes after they had emptied it poor bugger. Had it been full he’d of likely lived.
An old girlfriends dad was a pilot on mozzies during the war. The stories were incredible and he spoke of fondness for the old girl.
He also had loads of “photos” he took of the bombing runs in Norwegian fjords on German shipping ! Devastating.
God I miss him
My cousin flew P-38 reconnaissance (thank you spell check) over Germany and would land in Italy sometimes. He told me that his only armament was a .45 pistol. With just cameras his total weight being low permitted his plane to fly faster and higher than any German fighters. He retired a Lieutenant General. Super nice guy. His widow is still with us at age 98.
I sat in the cockpit of a P-38 at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, California. It was a cozy fit for this 200 pound Air Force veteran. At that same air museum my wife and I were privileged a couple of years ago to see a visiting Mosquito on display and also flying. The sound of those two engines gave me chills. Great museum.
I’ve seen that P-38 flying over my house several times
... And thank you for your service!!
@@ravenmoon5111 Now that is NOT something you get to see everyday!!!
Thank you! This is quite an exceptional analysis!
Glad you liked it! Thank you so much for your generosity Jim!
My older brother, who was a prop airplane mechanic in the U.S. Air Force, told me that the compressibilty problem was due to the center of pressure moving back toward the tail during high-speed airflow. They had never anticipated this because this was the first 400+ mph plane they had built. As it was explained tro me, the air going over the tail was actually near-supersonic. It was solved by changing the wing geometry to keep the lift in bounds when diving. Quick-acting dive flaps were installed outboard of the engine nacelles of planes in the field and at the factory on ones being built.
Regarding your comment on armament on the Mosquito.
I lived in Hamburg a few year ago in 1997 -2000, one of my Neighbours was a great man called George Wunderlich a former Luftwaffe test pilot who had flown amongst other things the Heinkel Salamander He117.
I asked him about the effective armament of the British bombers, and he mentioned going up to spot the British bomber streams at night. he said that even a .303 could "star" his armour plated screen , thus he had to return to base, or they could quite happily puncture radiators and many other vital devices on the aircraft, George described this a being "hosed down" on. He was a a lovely man who entertained my questions about the war bless him.
Many years ago I was a police cadet at welwyn garden city and there is a mosquito museum nearby. But in those days they had one that was able to fly. Our drill Sgt was an ex mosquito pilot and when they flew that plane we ALL stopped. Whoever was flying that plane knew what he was doing. Our SOB drill sgt was turned into a moist eyed human being for about 30 mins.
The flyable Mosquito was RR299. She belonged to British Aerospace and was based at Hatfield, where she was built. She was seen flying around on a regular basis until, sadly, she crashed/destroyed in 1996. But not officially connected with the museum.
The Mosquito Museum is further down the A1 at South Mymms and doesn't have an airstrip. Now called the De Havilland Museum I think. In fact the Mosquito was actually designed at this site, well away from the factory at Hatfield.
At some point after the factory closed there was a plan to maintain some sort of runway at Hatfield and to move the museum there. Nothing came of that unfortunately.
An excellent museum. Not been for a while. First went in the early 80's. At first everything except the prototype was outdoors!They did try to get one of their Mossies airworthy after the crash. They had the parts of the crashed one in a container.
I saw that mozzie running at British Aerospace open day and got a flight in a 1930's plane cost was £7 probably the best 7 quid Ive spent
Man I would have loved to have a fighter plane museum near my police academy. I definitely would have paid a few visits to it.
Like most tools of war, it depends on the precise task you need to accomplish. They're both beautiful warbirds.
Two of my favorites. I had Revell and Monogram models of both when I was a kid.
Same here.
Me too !
Both superb aircraft. Both had their flaws but were exactly what was needed at the time. They were built for different roles and that is reflected in their strengths and weaknesses. I don't think there's much to choose.
The superb Lockheed P38 outshines the so called ‘Wooden Wonder’ in almost every role and mission
Love the Mossy a truly great aircraft Captain Eric Winkle brown test pilot who flew 487 different types of aircraft he said the Mossy was the greatest of all the aircraft he flew think he was the first pilot to ever land a twin engine aircraft on an aircraft carrier, think the Mossy had about 7 different roles it could Perform Phillip , and took part in some of the greatest missions in ww2 , my granddad was an R.A.F Erk in ww2 worked on the Mossy for a while, he said it was a fantastic aircraft, he even got to fly in one on a short trip to check the engines out , P38 was a great aircraft also, but those Alison engines at height were a let down , I wonder how much better it would have done had they put the Merlins in it like they did with the P51, swapping their Alison engines for Merlins and the improvement it made to that aircraft was a quantum leap .
Most of the work the mosquito could do , could be done by few other planes , the P-38 had very long range , but most of its work could be done by most allied fighter planes within their range
@@stuartpeacock8257 the USAAF had the choice of P-38 and Mosquito in ETO and MTO and chose to use both, for example the Mosquito for some pathfinding missions, weather reconnaissance and as a night fighter. It had the edge, certainly in later versions, over the quite uncommon droop snoot P-38 as a bomber in that it could carry HC bombs (I don't think any US bomber could carry them to Berlin) and a greater variety of navigational aids.
As a pure fighter, the P-38 had the edge in a dog fight, even given its lighter armanent, and could carry a better load of bombs and rockets (at least in later versions) than the Mosquito. The FB. VI didn't really get the same sort of mid-life upgrades the P-38 or Mosquito NF or B versions got.
In terms of photo recon, the Mosquito had the edge early on, nothing much to choose later.
As a night intruder, the edge goes to the Mosquito, but the ultimate WW2 night intruder would be the P-61. The P-61 was a pretty average night fighter in WW2 as they didn't really sort out its performance for that role until the P-61C that was too late for WW2.
@@TheCaptain64 I agree, had the p38 had the Merlins, it would off won easily, but it didnt, ive had the pleaser of meeting GOD, as in Captain Eric Winkle Brown, twice, and attended his seminars three times, what a man!!
Hes description of landing a Mossie on an aircraft carrier, at 10MPH under the stall speed, has and always be an incredible story, he was a terrific individual
I’d be proud to fly them both. Growing up I watched Squadron 633 and loved the Mosquito & Gregory Peck flew one in the Pacific Islands, in a movie called: Purple Plain. The P-38 held it’s own with the Luftwaffe (Robin Olds flew the P-38 with success) and again in the Pacific theater of war. America’s top scoring ace there, Richard Bong flew the P-38. Both are great aircraft to fly, I think the Mosquito was more versatile, going fast, pin point accuracy and a navigator to assist. There’s a saying, 2 pair of eyes are better then one. The P-38 pilot had a heavy workload. The Allies were lucky to have such aircraft. Cheers!
Good documentary. My dad was honorably discharged after WW2 as a master mechanic for P-38s and P-51s. He was stationed in the Aleutian Islands.
The beauty is that BOTH aircraft fought on the same side - that meant that strategists had the option of using them either in their optimal role or even both together where each could help enhance overall effectiveness by working cooperatively.
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Well done Len, amazingly this seems completely lost on almost everyone else on this comments section.
@@willthorlin Perhaps, but explain to almost everyone else in the comments section why the P38 Lightning was withdrawn from the European and African Theatre of Operations almost entirely after their initial debut?
They worked very well in the Pacific but the ETO and ATO were completely different air wars to the PTO.
Great point. It was the start of the strongest alliance in world history. Long live the Special Relationship.
Two other planes that don't seem to get nearly enough attention, and I suspect have a great story behind them, are the Bristol Beaufighter and the Junkers 88! You've done such a great job with this video, how about a video covering these two planes, not necessarily up against each other (or that could be fun!), but a discussion about their varied roles, and what contributions they made. The whole ground/sea attack/close air support/fighter bomber role never seems to get the accolades that the fighter blokes always got!
I think there is scope for plenty more excellent videos there. Good luck!
Beaufighter, very tough aircraft, hard to kill with the lightly armed and armoured Zeros
Beaufighter, was a beast.
Not under rated by those that flew it.
History does not give it enough love.
@@MrGrim2u1987 too true, love it’s nickname of whispering death. Lots of stories about beaufighters flying so low they came back with tree branches attached to them.
Beau’s most outstanding quality was its uncanny ability to be ready at the right place and the right time.
This is how a plane hastily designed reusing parts of the Beaufort bomber ended up serving from the end of the battle of Britain to the end of the war - it was the first radar equipped night fighter, and the backbone of anti-shipping in coastal command. Sure the Mosquito was sexier and ultimately superior BUT the Beau was there first to carry most of the action, when no other plane could do it.
@@rararnanan7244 The ultimate British Bulldog, followed up by the Whippet!
Gene Roddenberry (creator of Star Trek),a B-17 pilot in the Pacific during the war, got the concept of the USS Enterprise (starship, not carrier) from the P-37 with its twin nacelles. He didn’t want the ship in his story to look like a rocket as was done in all the other sci-fi movies/shows of the era.
My dad was an RAF pilot during the war. His best friend was a navigator in a Mossie. On one sortie his pilot was killed but he managed to land the aircraft on his own.
Great video. I was born in 1941 but, in those days we did not have access to up to date film of the exploits of the RAF and USAF so I am especially glad to see this. Having worked within a few miles of the birthplace of the Mosquito, i have to go with it but am thankful to them both.
My father stuck on the Azores in WW II, spoke highly of the Mosquito's in use there. Also the Mosquito's carried undercover spies & agents deep into Axis territories, somehow secreted in the Bombay's. Their identities kept secret from the pilots who ferried them in the cover of darkness. The SOE & OSS agents.
And in some cases people were evacuated in mossies. E.g. Physicist Niels Bohr.
Ooh, my grandad was in Raf Lagens, Terceira,during the war as well. I'm sure their stories are very very similar.
@@doyouwanttogivemelekiss3097 The Mosquitos flew into neutral Sweden under BOAC colours carrying the iconic Speedbird emblem on the nose.
@@doyouwanttogivemelekiss3097 Niels Bohr said he was dressed with more than one life jacket and laden down with flares. He recounts how a grinning pilot helped him into the bomb bay and said if they ran into trouble they would drop him. He was assured that a RN submarine would "try" to pick him up.
Lightning v's Mosquito. It's like Mustang v's Spitfire. All 4 were amazing period aircraft, absolute game changers and significant contributors to the Allies' victory.
The thing that they all have in common is they aren't as good as the Jug.
You don't need aerodynamics when you can just beat the air into submission.
Spoken like a true politician dude. Can't make a decision.
Range makes the Mustang superior but late Spitfire mK's could outrun it. Being Canadian the Spitfire is my favorite of the two.
My chief in the Surgical Pathology Department and the University Chief in London, Ontario, Canada was a navigator in Mosquitos in the RCAF in WWII. He said that the only drawback was accommodations in the plane were very crowded and on long missions very uncomfortable for the two man crew.
As for the P-38, my reading about this great aircraft was the heating system. The cockpit was very cold and for some reason this was a problem that was never really solved.
Great video, by the way.
Use the proper terminology / slang for christ sake. Americans flew " missions " your Chief flew "sorties" or "ops."
My Grandfather flew from 1941-1945 and 1947-1969 in the RAF and RAAF. He flew the Spitfire V-XIV and 64 mission in the Mosquito VI and the Australian built mark 40 and 42. Like most, his favorite was the Spit IX, but his mission in the Mossie in the pacific towards the end of the war were a talking point.
So happy someone finally decided to do a video on how very similar these two aircraft were both had quite a number of variance and could enter change each others roles quite easily.
They were as similar as you think. The Mossie surpassed in just about every category.
Both aircraft are fantastic and highly effective. The problem is the Mosquito was a bomber first and the bomber variant had higher speed in part thanks to the cockpit glass. The P-38 was well built and designed. Neither is really comparable to the other.
Yes one was a bomber that could fight and the other was a fighter that could bomb.
Well said!@@119beaker
Thanks!
Thanks a lot Eric, I appreciate it.
Well done, mate. As a yank, I”d select etc the P 38. You know how we love our guns here!
For the European theatre the Mozzy but it's the old saying "Horses for Courses" . Having a navigator aboard on long range missions would help by significantly reducing the workload, a late family friends husband flew in the Mosquito in WWII the bomber variant at some point going by the picture on her living room wall.
My Uncle flew the bomber variant of the Mosquito as a pathfinder, I asked him what it would have been like balling out. He thought the navigator would have been ok going through the hatch in the floor long as he held it steady, there was little room to manoeuvre, especially when wearing a flight suit.
He would have exited via the roof hatch risking hitting the tail. The Mosquito became unstable when the control's had been left.
He didn't think bailing out below 800/500 ft would have been possible.
Thankfully he never needed to find out.
@29:55, no. Speed relies primarily upon the overcoming of DRAG, of which weight plays only some part.
I own a yacht "MOZZY" that was fitted out by an ex WW2 Mosquito pilot and it has a few nods to the plane like its instruments layout ..apparently the plane and the boat were his two greatest passions..I feel a sense of honour keeping it looking its best ..and il visit the mosquito restoration link thanks 😊
Have you got roundels on it 👍
The P38 made a big target and was a total flop against German fighters. The Germans had a similar design which they rejected.
Great video. I've been fascinated by the P-38 for a long time, enjoying watching one at Duxford's 'Flying Legends' show in 2012. It's actually my favourite of all the US WW2 fighters. On balance, with all the gremlins gone, it would be my aircraft of choice (says he who flew a Hawker Hunter T7 at Farnborough in 1963). Thanks again!
The P-38 was truly a pre-war design, and the fact that it remained in full production and competitive as a frontline fighter to the end of the conflict, in both ETO and Pacific, is a testament to the versatility and strength of the design. It would be interesting to see a late war version of the Lightning had Lockheed been permitted to take advantage of the NACA developments that the P-51, and P-63 enjoyed, such as radiators making better use of the Meredith Effect. Much of the improvements had already been submitted by Lockheed but rejected by the War Production Board because of the weeks it would take production off line to re-tool. For example, more elongated and streamlined pilot gondola and canopy to increase Mach number to over .70 (NACA calculation), a single piece blown bubble canopy, leading edge oil coolers, radiators and inter coolers - similar to the DH Hornet, possible armament options to include 6 x .50 cals or 4 x Hispanos, increased allowed Manifold pressure to 70” as tested stateside for 1,800 BHP as approved by USAAF with 150 octane, and paddle propellers.
And make it a tail dragger. Why? Gondola could then have a 150gal fuel tank and still enough room for 7 .50s or 3 20mm! Plus the underside of the Gondola could be a hard point for ANOTHER dropable fuel tank or bomb
Lockheed built a mule with longer nose, twin cockpits . It was said to be a smoother flying and diving .
Spectre you are right and it woulda been cool...but it still did a wonderful job in the pacific...except it would have sucked being really tall stuck in it all day!
They mostly copied the Fokker D.I.
Ah... you're singing to the choir here! Except I think you would have needed a different airfoil section in addition to lengthening the gondola to get that critical Mach number up and getting away from the compressibility issue, but excellent points one and all! And they weren't going to get anywhere without those paddle bladed props. What I don't understand though was there was still some low hanging fruit around reducing drag like sealing up those gun ports. I don't know why they didn't allow them to do that I don't think that could have been a difficult change
I would want both. This is a fantastic comparison of my 2 fave/FAB WW2 aircraft. 👍👍 10⭐🙌
My third vid of yours, really enjoying your content! love both these planes, but the mosquito has it for me. Multi role, and one of the best looking planes built. The Lightning was pretty effective, one pilot used thrust vectoring in the Pacific, outstanding
Awesome, thank you!
Fantastic video and analysis!!!
Dude, I'm an American kid who grew up in the (former) British West Indies, and my uncle was a Lanc pilot in the RAF!
I'll say this... I always loved Mossies and later gained an appreciation for the Lintenings
I've read (or saw) videos and stories about why the P-38 was never equipped with Merlins and... not knowing much about flight performance, I'll assume them to be true.
I think they both did their respective jobs well, though I REALLY love the Mossies!!!
I really need to not be so drunk when trying to spell Lightening!
@@chrislong3938
(Lightning)
Hi Chris. Greg goes into the Merlin engine question here: ruclips.net/video/oJPGFcXRZZI/видео.html
@@jimsmith7212 I'll never get it right...
@@davee902 Best reference for all technical things Lightening related and WWII aircraft in general. The whole Merlin engine question always puzzled me but there were good reasons against it in the Lightning. You would not have seen any real performance improvement for all the reasons Greg cites. It's a must watch video on the topic... I never fully appreciated how important prop efficiency is... And the effects of parasitic drag.
Interesting note on bomb capacity... in the Pacific, P-38's were fitted with 2x2000lb bombs between the engines and central nacelle and carried 4x300lb bombs outboard of the engines for a total of 5200lbs of bombs. Of course this was for short distances, but amazing that the plane could get off the ground with this much bomb load... Certainly the Mosquito had the range while carrying heavy bomb loads internally and externally. Either way, it probably surprised the Germans and the Japanese to face aircraft which could fight and bomb as well as these two could.
Were there any mentions of the mossie being a stealth aircraft? Bexause of the wood construction, I'm told they emitted a much smaller radar signature than that of the metal sort.
This is a interesting topic of discussion as these two aircraft were ahead of their time but suffered from setbacks resulting in a delay in both production and wartime usage. With that said, these were two very different aircraft from the outset and this, the question of which aircraft would I prefer largely depends on the mission requirements. If I were in the European theatre of operations and on a bombing/raid or reconnaissance mission, hands down I'd choose the mosquito. Likewise, a night time mission would all for the mosquito. However, if I were in a dogfight, I'd have to go with the P38 as this plane was was better suited for this type of combat. In the Pacific, again, the type of mission would dictate which aircraft I would choose but due to the construction, I'd have to go with the P38. I have to note here that while the notion of a twin engine aircraft was the solution of higher speeds when these two aircraft were originally conceived, they both were equally matched and even outpaced by single engine aircraft by late 1943/44. If I were in the RAF and in a dogfight, the Spitfire MKlX would be my choice. Conversely, the FW190D would be my choice of a German aircraft. By 1945, I might go with the P47M as this was the fastest propeller aircraft in the European theatre at wars end and definitely more rugged survivable while sustaining damage from enemy aircraft. A honorable mention als goes out the the Tempest in late 1944/45 in lower altitude as this airplane was a beast in both air to air an air to ground combat. The Mustang had a greater range than any aircraft but it was a average dogfighter, in my opinion and it's numbers are inflated due to the lack of experienced German pilots by wars end. Not to say it wasn't a capable aircraft, for the P51 was one hell of a plane once the Merlin engine was introduced in a redesigned P51D model, I would simply prefer the aforementioned aircraft over the P51 and with regards to this video, the P38 and the Mosquito. In the Pacific, the Japanese Zero was outclassed rather quickly once the allies learned of it's shortcomings such as lack of armour and self sealing fuel tanks so as long as a pilot didn't get into a turning duel, the P38 and hellcat were more than capable. Again, the Mosquito was not designed as a pure dogfighter so in this roll, the P38 wins. But as in Europe, a night mission, a plane needed in a raid and or reconnaissance mission, my choice is the Mosquito. The are two very capable aircraft and need to be respected for the original intentions that they were designed for vs how they were eventually used. Simply stated, these were two of the finest aircraft the allies had and capable of just about any task asked of them. Truly remarkable.
How do you win - period. You climb up, look down and spray. NO dogfighting.
Hey great Video! One thing I am surprised you didn't bring up about the Mosquit is that is had a low radar signature, this was due to it's wood construction. So it had a somewhat "stealthy" quality, one reason why they tended to fly very low to the ground (more difficult to detect by radar) and fly at night
The book by Jeremy Walsh regarding Mosquito operations in Burma and Jungle areas, gave considerable information on the structural problems with the aircraft. There were many issues with de-bonding and separations with the airframe. The same problems occurred with the post war DH Hornet, which shared the same construction.
the problem was fairly easily fixed by reformulating the resin mix for humid operations.
What a combination for a channel. Good subject matter with rich visuals & the many commentators with their wealth of related material.
2 amazing aircraft flown by even more amazing people. I personally have to agree with most of the comments. In other words, styles make fights. Regardless of whether you choose the plane from our shores, or choose the plane from our family across the pond, they and their aircrews are legends for eternity 👍
Ahh the forgotten legend, the wooden wonder. How this plane doesn't get the same respect from some people as the Spitfires and Lancasters I'll never know.
I would rate it as the overall best plane in WWII. It could do pretty much any aviation job well if not greatly.
You must be joking? The fanboy pushing of the mosquito is almost obnoxious. It's hardly forgotten at all.
@@WALTERBROADDUS if you like aviation maybe, but I guarantee you 95% of joe bloggs in this country wouldn't name it if you asked them for five WW2 planes.
Who has forgotten or doesn't respect the Mosquito? All you ever hear about it is superlatives. I get it, you are just trolling for comments.
@@gort8203 read above, I'm not repeating myself for you.
Great video. On the handling - the Mosquito has it when you consider it was able to operate at all altitudes very effectively. Low level or high altitude, it was a amazingly nimble. Much of the mosquitos bombs were internally housed, so its bomb load didn't effect it's speed or handling anywhere near as much as the Lightning.
The early Mossies like the shitfire and Hurrycanes used the Merlin 20 series that had the SINGLE STAGE supercharger, with a second SPEED on the compressor. The High Altitude Merlin 60 series 2 stage 2 speed di NOT exist until late 1942 early 1943, You CANNOT paint all Mossies with the same brush, same as the shitfire !! !
@@wilburfinnigan2142 Wilbur, WIlbur, Wilbur.... I didn't paint all mossies the with the same brush. Surely you're not besmerching the early spitfires? You know, the ones that kept aircraft carrier Great Britain open for the Americans to use their British deisgn spec Mustangs from (using their Allison, ahem, Rolls Royce Merlin engines) to protect their B17s which could not carry half the payload of the Lancaster? Next you'll be saying the AC Cobra was American (West Byfleet, AC: look it up). And the second stage supercharger didn't have to exist until 1942 in order to compete the awful American designs of the time, partly, because the Americans hadn't yet decided to enter the war... Careful when you put the Spitfire in disrespectfully in your crosshairs, you're likely to get out-turned and shot down.
@@wilburfinnigan2142 Where have you been? Fed up with posting under different names perhaps?. Back to a 'two-stage' name rather than a 'single-stage' one...
The Mosquito for me. They were based at RAF Rochford at one time and after the war I managed to get hold of one of the last 1/8" plywood sheets to make the curved frontage of a cocktail bar I was building in my Dad's shed.
Personally, I've always been in love with the P-61. She's just a beautiful craft and I got to look around inside one when I was 14.
Yes myself as well , she's a gorgeous lady the "p-61 black widow" . Hobbyboss has a 1/32 scale model kit which I , have it's hugh check it out !
Some 40 years ago I was windsurfing on the lake at Rutland in England, when a Mosquito flew low over my head. It was one of the most unexpected, astonishing and awesome things I have had the pleasure of seeing and listening to. I have always loved the design of the P38 Lightning and worked on the English Electric Lightning in the 1970s. The Mosquito was capable of so many different roles that it must come out on top, though the P38 was also a brilliant aircraft. Thanks for the video.
Mossies were purpose built for specific roles. Bombers had no guns and a max bomb load of 3,000 pounds except "some" modified late war, fighter bombers had a max bomb load of 1,500 pounds.
Most P38's had 4 .50's and one 20mm and a min bomb load of 2,000 pounds. Late war models 4,000 pounds.
@David Barr
DH98 Mosquito B. Mk IX 54 built 1,680 hp Merlin 72 engines - otherwise as B. Mk IV. 54 built. Could carry 2,000 lb internally, plus one 500 lb bomb or a drop tank under each wing. Some modified with bulged bomb bay doors for 4,000 lb bomb.
BAE Mosquito page
About ten years ago, I was enjoying a day at the beach here on the Central Coast of California when I heard a loud rumble. I looked up and saw a P-38 making slow lazy es turns heading up the coast, going as slow as it could. About five minutes later, a small single engine Piper or Cessna came along flying flat out trying to catch up. My guess is that they were on their way to take in-flight pictures of the P-38 along the Big Sur coast. It was an incredible sight, and sound!
@@lverock In the early 1980s I worked and lived in Germany and spoke on many occasions to an old German guy who lived across the road. He told me that during the war he had been part of an anti aircraft outfit and had faced attacking P38s. He said that at the time, frightened was hardly the word to describe the way he felt. It is good to know that we had aircraft that could put the fear of God into the adversary.
My father was in the 23rd Fighter Group, USAAC, 4 years in Burma to Central China. He flew the P40B and C, the P-51C and the last 18 months of his tour he was the Commander of a P-38 squadron. Of all the planes he flew, the P-38 was his clear favorite and love. [Capt ret USAF 20th SOS, 27th Spl Ops Wing, 20 years, Nam 70-73]
The two top American aces of World War II, Richard Bong, and Thomas Maguire jr, flew the P38 against the Japanese, including the A6M Zero fighter.
Interestingly it wasn't until they really changed to zoom and boom tactics that it really came into its own. Forget about trying to get into a low-altitude turning fight... just dive down and light 'em up... than get away fast!
@@Mike-eq4ky Boom and Zoom tactics were always practiced by USAAC crews, even before the P-38 started arriving in numbers in the SWPTO. P-40s, P-39s and to an extent P-36’s on Dec 7, all used those tactics because Japanese aircraft were much more lighter and its wing loading allowed for such superior turning at lower speeds during dog fighting that it would have been suicide to do so with the heavier USAAC aircraft.
Don’t forget the Ki-43. That aircraft was even lighter and more nimble than the Zero, which had to carry a lot of weight for carrier operations.
It is called TACTICS !!! Put away the egos and learn to used YOUR planes strength against the enemies weaknesses !!!! That was learned early on, flying tigers but it was hard for many pilots to accept !!
@@wilburfinnigan2142 Valid point. However , it is amazing how some P-38s pilots were able to hang with Japanese fighters in a dogfight. There are accounts of Lynch, Bong, and McGuire coming back from sorties with an airplane that was all bent up from the heavy maneuvering it was put through and basically had to be written off. There’s an interview of a 475th pilot here on RUclips who describes a P-38 that managed to turn with and then bring guns to onto a one-on-one with a Ki -43 that it had been turn-fighting. He said they both were low and slow from all of the maneuvering they had been doing until the P-38 pilot surprised the the Ki-43 by dropping its flaps and gear and bringing its guns to bare on the Japanese fighter.
Wow what a terrific piece of analysis and insight!
I have tremendous affection for both, I don’t know which one has a higher service ceiling, wait, etc., but I think I’ll go with the Mossy…
Ahem! Now that I’ve heard everything, I might be lonely, but I’d rather be going into battle in the P38…
Here's a detail that might blow some people's minds. One of the senior designers for the P-38 went on to become the head designer of the SR-71 (and the U-2), Kelly Johnson.
I know, there's a book written about him. Very interesting read indeed. I can't remember the book's title, sorry.
Kelly Johnston is an aviation Legend
A pretty close contest so we need a tiebreaker: Engine sound - the music of the RR Merlins all day long. I first heard it as a kid over 50 years ago, and on the rare occasions I hear it today it still makes the hairs I have left on the back of my neck stand up.
P#* with Merlins would have be awesome.
I have heard Merlin engines (Packard licensed version of the Merlin) in the P51 here in the states, and have heard the twin Allison V1710's at an airshow once, and was mesmerized. by the sound. I have yet to hear twin merlin engines though. I would love to see these two aircraft in one airshow.
@@nealbowserjr4344 Most I have heard at once was six, a Lancaster escorted by a Hurricane and a Spitfire. For people my age and older, the Merlin was the sound of freedom.
There are not many people around who have heard a Lightning with the plumbed and working turbochargers, which would really affect the sound you would hear. The turbos really reduced the sound from the exhaust manifold, and the P-38 had a reputation of being a quieter aircraft, though probably not to the pilot who sat between the twin props.
Goering could be the tie breaker. In 1943 he said," It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminum better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again.".
As a civilian pilot, I simply point to the top two USAAF Aces of Aces - they both where P-38 drivers. Hence, since I was a boy, my favorite aircraft of all time. Bar none.
Of course the top two (four out of six actually) Allied aces flew P-39s.
The mosquito every time. Besides it just looks good. Had a model when I was a kid. Loved playing with it.
Spartan Air Services, circa 1953 tried to use a civilian P-38 Lighting for aerial photo mapping in the Canadian Arctic. Spartan found it was too much for a pilot to do the navigating, flying and working the camera for the photo mapping. They switched to the DeHavilland Mosquito and had a crew of 3 to do the work. The Mossie proved to be the right a/c for this job. My group recovered the wreckage of Mossie CF-HMR in 1996 and found tires from the Lighting that was used at Pelly Lake, NWT.
Spartan also had a Hornet for the same task. That actual aircraft is currently being made flyable. The main problem is finding some of the engine parts which were unique to Rolls-Royce Merlin 100 series...
And the Lightning was known to have a drafty cockpit and a notoriously weak heater for high altitude work. Was uncomfortably cold at higher altitudes , especially in Europe and North America
SR71 pilots had problems like that too. One pilot said that you are naver as lost as you are at 2,000 mph.
Ever hear of the F-5 in WW2? That was the P-38. 1/3 of the P-38s were made into F-5s and used for photo recon on all fronts.
@@deafsmith1006 Yep.
Very difficult to compare these two. On the face of it, with both being twin engined and high performance aircraft they may appear similar. But they are in fact very different.
As a day fighter the P-38 is clearly superior. However, as a night fighter, pathfinder, low level fighter bomber and anti-shipping aircraft the Mosquito wins hands down.
Both fantastic aircraft in their own rights.
The best testimony is in the German reports. Hardly any mention of the Lightning but much frustration expressed about the Mosquito.
The p38 could carry a torp aswell but it didn't need to because America had the best torpedo bomber of the war already. Also the p48 is a far better bomber, payload and range
@@thethirdman225 p38 had mostly been replaced by the 47. The 47 was better than both
@@casematecardinal The P-47 was not better than the Mosquito. The two are not comparable.
@@thethirdman225 in every aspect of a fighter and an escort(except for night fighter but even the bf110 was a good night fighter) it was. As a close air support platform and fighter bomber, it was. Id muc rather fly a p47. Safer, faster, more durable, better protected, the list goes on and on
One of the best metal workers I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with was John Wiggins as a WW2 army ranger he had exposure to the Mosquito and he used to talk about it all the time.
My father was a naval aviator but never flew. He fought the Japanese from the very beginning starting in the Solomon's. He loved to see the P38s in support... So do I.
I have always admired the Mosquito for audacious design, superb performance, and dazzling speed. The Lightning arrived before the concept of operations empowered it to full effect. Like the F-4 Phantom, the P-38 was only a “fighter” if it was fighting its fight. At altitude, it was at its best. If I could pick a WW2 fighter, like many others who have posted here, I would say that it would depend on the mission. If the P-51 were not in the discussion, the Mosquito would be my preferred night fighter, principally because two heads are better than one. For high-altitude escort or long range special operations, the Lightning takes it. For low altitude dogfighting, the Spitfire, and for intercept, the ME262. This was a really wonderfully done video. Both visuals and narrative get excellent marks. Thank you for taking the time to put this together; the comments reveal the value of the effort.
P38 Tactical Mach 0.68 Mosquito 0.75 The Mossie could go further in the dive than the P38
@@jacktattis only at high altitude where mach limits make a difference.
@@thefolder69 It did not help the P47
@Caliban Rising - The P-38 did not “invariably flip on its back” if it loses an engine on takeoff, as you claim. It would roll onto its back if the pilot panicked and pushed the throttle forward on the good engine in an attempt to get attain more airspeed. The manual clearly states to reduce power on the good engine and adjust the trim. Lockheed test pilot Tony Levier performed many incredible aerial demonstrations with the P-38, perhaps the most famous being acrobatic maneuvers with one prop feathered including rolls into the dead engine, to dispel the myth that turning into the dead engine would kill you.
Thanks for the correction.
Enjoyed your video. Truly two of my favorite early WW2 war planes. Both outstanding! ❤
A Mossie every time .Twin Merlins , sound of the gods themselves
The lightning used v-12s as well and likely sounded very similar to the mosquito
I would rather be in the mosquito. A much greater survivability rate, and I just like it’s versatility.
@@joehuss8296
Survivability? The Mosquito was made of wood.
The Lightning was tougher.
@@c2jones You a structural engineer? Got experience on both types?
@theinspector1023
Uh, so one has to be a structural engineer to know that the Mosquito was wooden and the Lightning wasn't? Are you having illusions that the wooden frame was anywhere near as rigid as the stainless steel, flush-riveted, butt-jointed aluminum skin panels?
Don't be a goof.
Excellent review of these iconic warbirds. Both planes were technical wonders for their time, but the armor, speed, and range lead me to side with the P38.
It's Apples and Oranges. They both are great multi-roll aircraft, but one is foremost a Fighter and the other a high-speed light Bomber/Attack aircraft.
I vividly recall seeing the Mosquitos used in the film 633 Squadron at an RAF Biggin Hill air show and very impressive they were to.
I used to sometimes sail, race, out of Falmouth, Cornwall with the late Henry Ferris.
Henry was a school teacher, an excellent helmsman and navigator, very amiable despite his considerable reputation for winning races.
A day came when in light airs we the crew had time to chat and exchange stories.
It was in that unlikely setting I learned that Henry, a diminutive 5 foot 2 inches had flown Mosquitoes during WW 2 .
He said he had to sit on a cushion to be able to see where he was going...
Aghhmm, you misspelt TOO 😕
I've got a shifting spanner that flew from the united kingdom to New Zealand in the tool box of the chief engineer of our mossies after the war.
They flew them down without loss skipping from base to base, he said it was one of the most memorable things he ever did.
He had missed out on getting to fly a spitfire by 8 days.
Cursed them for ending the war right then.
Nice to see a match between the Hornet and the lightning. It would be a more of an apple n oranges comparison. Great video, thanks.
Great suggestion!
Very true, but the Hornet came a bit later.
it would be pretty unfair, seeing as the Lightning is at the end of the day a pre-war design, while the Hornet came much later.
I will give both a thumbs up they teamed up to win. 👍
9:28 this is because the British ordered all of their p38's without counter-rotating props. American versions had counter rotation to nullify the effects of torque-roll, even if an engine failed during takeoff, the other prop was rotating in the proper direction to be much more manageable. Plus, they could roll to each side equally well, unlike the British versions.
That's true, the initial prototype of the Lockheed P 38 had contra - rotating propellers, and crashed on takeoff killing the pilot.
I'd say the P-38 no problem .. The Mosquito was a heavy assault strike aircraft. P-38 was a high altitude heavy fighter bomber interceptor and was much more versatile and technology advanced .. I'd also say the A-20 and B-26 over the mosquito as well.
My grandfather flew the P-40, P-38 & P-47 in combat with the TAC. He preferred the P-38 as a gun platform and said it was more durable.
I'd be curious about designs of both the mosquito and the P-38 with modern materials (carbon fiber and aluminum) avionics, and gas turbine engines. Even if they didn't make it into a military design, but I bet they would make amazing civilian aerobatics and racers.
My dad knew one of the P-38 pilots that few to intercept Yamamoto. When I was small he took me to meet the guy. At that point he was pretty old. He said had been shot down 3 times in the war, and he still had burn scars on his hands and arms that he got when he ended up in the ocean with burning fuel on the surface.
Which guy because one of them, was a liar?
All of the pilots who flew that operation and survived (one P-38 did not return) were immediately sent home to the U.S., because being part of the mission made them aware of the U.S. breaking the Japanese military codes and reading its messages. That made them an unacceptable security risk in combat.
So anyone on that mission would not have flown another combat mission.
Rex Barber was accepted as the guy who shot down the Betty which Yamamoto was in. Thomas Lanphier claimed the victory originally.
@@AlanRoehrich9651 Not true about the pilots not flying more combat missions. Rex Barber went on to fly P-38's in China for the 449th Fighter squadron(He was shot down and rescued by Chinese civilians). And the operation leader(John W. Mitchell) later flew P-51 Mustangs on long-range missions over Japan.
The P-38 is such a superb looking aircraft; and one of the finest fighters of the war. Robin Olds flew one. Good enough for me.
I agree, the P-38 is a beaut!
I do appreciate both aircraft, especially in their respective "special mission" rolls which could only be done by one or the other of these two aircraft. But if having to choose between them I'd go with the P-38 Lightning. The advantaged defensive armament would be nice to have in, say, an ambush that negated a speedy escape. Plus, it seems that many of the P-38's failings could be (and were) overcome by specified training, whereas most of the Mosquito's shortcomings (admittingly perspectivally limited) could not. Of course, the Mosquito's bailout advantage is nice, but either way, who wants to have to bailout of a damaged airplane? As well, I do have one more bit of a bias towards the P-38, that being that I live less than five miles from March ARB (Air Reserve Base,) which is, of course, the formerly designated "March Field" from which the very first P-38 Lightning took off from on its maiden (and doomed) flight.
For me it's the Mossie, as I fly my microlight from a small airfield right behind the De Havilland aircraft museum at London Colney in Herts, UK. The museum is literally right next door to Salisbury Hall, where the aircraft was designed, and the one and only prototype is still there in the museum, only a few yards from where it was concieved and drawn. They actually have three airframes there in the main hangar/hall. One is the aforementioned prototype, which is now painted in yellow and camo, but which used to be painted red. There's also a bomber version, and a fighter bomber version.
Interesting facts about the Mossie that you may not be aware of:
The prototype was actually the fastest of all of those made. It had slightly shorter wings that were squared off at the ends. This wasn't by design, but came about because one day as the plane was being towed out of the hangar, one wingtip caught the hangar door. Geoffrey De Havilland (the test pilot) told the ground crew to quickly saw off the broken bit and tidy it up, then cut the other wing to match it. When it was all done about an hour later, he flew it!
Another thing about the Mossie prototype that was different from the production aircraft was shorter engine nacelles. This meant the ailerons and/or flaps, were uninterrupted along the trailing edge of the wings. However, the plane was found to fishtail a bit at high speed, so rather than employing a larger tail fin, they made the engine nacelles longer and shortened the flaps for all production aircraft. This cured the problem, so the Mossie didn't have a large sweeping tail design like a B17, or the forward extension to the tail fin like a later P51s.
@@BobHUK that's a neat bit of extra info on the Mossie, especially the part about the (prototype) wings being cut. I imagine the De Havilland aircraft museum is pretty amazing. There's an air museum as well next to the airbase (March Reserve) that is pretty impressive. A lot of varied aircraft displayed and other historic aircraft memorabilia, this includes a section of canvas from a fighter of WWI's "La Fayette Escadrille," the American volunteers air combat squadron that fought under the command of the French Air Corps early in the war (before the U.S. officially joined the war effort).
I'm an avid fan of aeronautical history, a lot of that comes from being born into an USAF family.
Again, thanks for the interesting extra trivia about the Mosquito and what-not. If there's anything else you'd like to share about that or any other aircraft history, I wouldn't mind reading about it. 😎👍
Much respect to all the heroic crews who flew in both types in defence of freedom.
The addition of dive brakes to the P38 greatly improved its maneuverability and dog fighting ability.
You dont need airbrakes to divebomb in a mossie, they flew at 20ft and could drop a bomb to a few meters accuracy.
The P-38 did not have dive brakes. It has dive recovery flaps, which did not slow the aircraft. They changed the shape of the wing, and created a "pitch up", allowing the P-38 to reach higher speeds in dives and still recover easier.
Some pilots did use the dive flaps to give that momentary pitch up, in order to pull for a shot.
@@christianbuczko1481 the dive brakes weren't so much for dive bombing as they were for high-altitude dive recovery, as the P-38's mach limit was the big issue for its dive performance, which only becomes a problem up high where mach limits happen at lower speeds than IAS limits. the P-38 was a bomber secondarily, they weren't making changes on it to make it bomb better.
My memory is a bit vague but an example of glue failing might be the wartime crash, at Bankstown N.S.W., of an Australian-built Mosquito that was (I think) attributed to spar delamination. Apparently, the original casein glue was vulnerable to microbiological degradation in warm, humid conditions; a problem that was solved by the replacement of casein with phenol-formaldehyde adhesive. Another issue encountered in RAAF Pacific service was damage to the plywood skin due to abrasive debris thrown up by tyres and prop-wash when aircraft were operated from sand and coral surfaced airstrips... That's the best I can recall from research for a uni essay I wrote 23 years ago :D