I feel like you nailed it with the thumbnail. FIGHTER/bomber vs fighter/BOMBER. They both started out as one concept and through evolutionary pressure became twin engine multirole aircraft.
Pe-2;Pe-3 here. High-alt fighter project "100" was redesigned as a dive bomber. Though, due to lack of gun production, Pe-3 was in fact granted a very humble firepower. Not counting Me 210/410 and other initially dual/multi-role projects. P-70 was a bad interceptor, I doubt Ki-46 became a forbidable interceptor
I was fortunate enough to work on a Mosquito re-build. The methods of construction were very well conceived, I also learned that there is a lot of metal in a wooden aircraft!
@@ottovonbismarck2443 If it were a Flyer then it must've been in Kiwiland...; they're doing Ground-Runs on the 4th Mosquito to be returned to Flight, in Ardmore (according to a "recent" Aeroplane magazine - seamailed to Oz). When I grew up, Mosquitos were rare and going extinct, because they were all deemed "impossible" to restore once the Termites & Wet Rot set in. But, in Kiwiland, one may lawfully Homebuild & fly ANYTHING - if it's built of Wood... ; I keep waiting for a Laminated Plywood Boeing 747 or a C-17 to quietly emerge from a Backyard in Dunedin or Tokoroa (!). Such is life, Have a good one. Stay safe. ;-p Ciao !
I was once involved in a search for a Mossie that went down off Felixstowe. This was in the days when a towed Magnetometer was the main search instrument for underwater wrecks. Our research suggested the only things on a Mosquito which would register would be the engines and engine mounts. Everything else metal was too small.
My solo instructor, Stan Hurbet, was a P-38 test pilot. His test to sign me off was that I had to wrestle the controls from him on final and say, “it’s my airplane.” He was strong as a bull, had the Chuck Yeager eyes, and did not suffer fools. When I asked him about the P-38 testing, his major complaint was that when he rolled it, all the metal shavings from assembly and construction came down into his eyes. After we landed, he just got out of the airplane, said, go ahead and solo. I’ll be watching. He stood next to the runway as I taxied back on the grass for RWY 25 at Colts Neck. Made the best landing ever and taxied up next to him. He just said, give me your logbook. Signed me off, said tie down the airplane, turned around and walked back to the flight office.
Reminds me of when I read Highest Duty, the memoir of Chesley Sullenberger, the captain who made the miracle landing of an Airbus on the Hudson river. After he first soloed in the 1950s, his instructor simply said something along the lines that he wasn’t surprised since he already knew he could do it.
@@brucebaxter6923 yeah, but it’s not a fully apples-to-apples comparison as the Sea Hornet was actually deployed on carriers, but the Tigercat never was.
My mum was in the WRAF and there were three other ladies that stuck together! They were station at an English vicarage! One of the ladies know a P38 pilot and his group when they came back from a mission! Would fly around the church spire and the vicar used to come out and shake his first at them and call them naughty boys! So this lad invited them all back for English Afternoon tea! They had never experienced that ever and I have this unique memory of my mum saying they looked really nervous! I just want to say a thank you to those yanks for what they did back then! May my mum, who died in 2019 aged 95 and her WRAF friends and the pilots all R.I.P 😢👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
As a engine geek I always wondered why hot rodding exploded after WW11 and I think I know why. All those maintenance personnel returned after the war with some serious hot rodding chops from working on all number of high performance engines in WW11. Thanks for your great videos.
Hi Greg. I'm a Brit and I am used to other Brits saying how great the Mozzie and the Spitfire were. The thing that I like about your posts is that they are never boasting about how great American aircraft were (and denigrating others) and you always make balanced assessments of the aircraft under discussion. I am not an automotive engineer, but I knew about the compression ratio/knock problem and it came as a surprise to me when I found (courtesy of your videos) out about the boost/octane problem. You produce wonderful stuff. Keep up the good work. P.s. I recall reading somewhere that aside from the Tallboy/ Grand Slam raids, Britain would have been better off using Mosquitos rather than the Lancaster in the night offensive. I'd like to hear your opinion, especially since you are the only one I trust to give an honest assessment. maybe it would be something for another video.
" how great the Mozzie and the Spitfire were" wrt the Mossie - I think this (deserved!) impression of Mossie greatness comes mainly from the period immediately after it was developed and introduced, especially the astonishment that it could outpace the then-variant of the Spitfire. By the end of the war, the Mosquito was much less remarkable. But also its reputation comes from from the Mossie's night role over Germany and occupied Europe, when it was used (often simultaneously, during the same missions) as a pathfinder bomber, escort nightfighter, and for intrusion work - ground-attacking German nightfighter bases (and other targets) and intercepting German nightfighters when taking-off or (especially) landing. All these roles absolutely require a second crew-member - navigator/ radar operator +/- bomb aimer (for pathfinders). Apparently, this led to a German legend or mythos of the Mosquito *at night* - ie. an exaggerated impression that the aircraft was lethal and everywhere, all the time! There was a tendency of Germans to blame nearly-all mishaps and losses of all types on the "invincible" Mosquito - as an acceptable explanation, even when Mosquitos were not responsible (and were perhaps not even there). But that was at night; by contrast in most of its uses as a "heavy fighter", the Mosquito was (I think) perceived more like a faster and nimbler Bristol Beaufighter - with greater bomb capacity; better for most (not all) jobs, but significantly less rugged. In general - when comparing with the Lightning - the strange thing is that these two aircraft *converged* so strikingly in their multi-role usage over time. This was perhaps even more remarkable for the Lightning; since an escort fighter is probably a much more conceptually specialized role than that of the type of a twin-crew, twin-engined "Schnellbomber" - which seems always to have been regarded as a suitable basis for multiple uses. In sum - I would say that the Main difference between Mosquito and Lightning is related to the provision of a second crew member - who brings both extra possibilities for usage, but also entails reduction of performance from the necessarily increased weight and air-resistance consequences.
Don't get me started about the Mossie vs. The Castrated Lightnings. The U.S. State and War Departments blocked sales of P-38's to Britain before Pearl Harbor, because they feared Germany would win and capture the turbocharger technology. So Lockheed built the P-322, with mechanical superchargers, and produced a beautifully stable gun and bombing platform, with a top speed only a little faster than a Hudson, and a service ceiling of around 12,000 feet! (Gack!) The Mosquito was designed and built almost on a dare, because deHavilland wanted a military contract so they could proudly say "We helped win the Air War!" and point to their product. Problem was - limited materials for aircraft not already designed and contracted. At least, metals. So, they designed and built what was, for a Long Time, the World's Fastest, most maneuverable, heaviest-armed flying model airplane. Two Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, a pilot, a B/N, 4-8 guns and up to 4,000 lbs. of bombs, all wrapped in birch and balsa laminated plywood!
Fascinating in-depth comparison. I had seen how similar the two aircraft are by my much more superficial comparison. What I have concluded in the past was that the mosquito is the better bomber and the P-38 the better fighter, though both are very capable multi-role aircraft. I think both contributed to the development of the idea of the multi-role fighter bomber which has endured to this day.
Mossies were not multirole, FB''s had a max internal bombload of 500 lb, bombers and PR had no guns or cannon. All P38's except PR had four .50's and one 20mm. Late war P38's had a max load of 4,000 lb of conventional bombs.
It’s even more interesting to compare to recent history - the US took a fighter, the F-15, and turned it into a bomber while the Brits took a bomber, the Tornado, and turned it into a fighter/interceptor… Echoes of the past!
i dont think its a fair comparison at all. one was a state of the art fighter made by an aircraft manufacture and the other was a light bomber made by people that made cupboards and wardrobes that inherited a whole punch of roles because the planes in them were obsolete. compare a westland whirlwind to a p-38 if you want but mosquito should go up against a do-17, ju-88, or B-25/26
@@nickdanger3802 Pierre Clostermann pointed out in "Flames in the Sky" that the later version P38s could carry a similar weight of bombs to that of a B17 (obviously not as many bombs, which only makes the comparison valid in some missions). He also was not quite so complimentary of their qualities as a fighter, referring to the early times when P38s trying to dogfight Zeros had high losses. After they developed tactics which nullified the latter's advantages did they perform well against them.
@@geesehoward700 DeHavilland had been making aircraft for years, & the specialist workers weren't people "who made cupboards & wardrobes". Both Germany & the USA tried to build wooden aircraft emulating the Mosquito's success, but both cases were unsuccessful. As fighter bombers, both should be compared to the opposition they would come up against, like BF109s, FW190s, or Zeros.
Just watched a second time. This is the best vid of its type anywhere. I mean that. The mosquito has become so legendary that you can’t separate the wheat from the chaff. We all really needed a credible, expert analysis of the empirical evidence to start to gain a true feel for such an unusual for WW2 aircraft. Thank you so much for taking this on!!! -Gene
Enjoying this - thanks. It's surprising how similar these are, considering the Mosquito was designed as a two-man bomber, and the Lighting as a single engined fighter. I've read several memoirs about flying the Mossie, and the missions described always required a second crew-member i.e. navigator/ radar operator (these books were about nightfighting and anti-shipping missions, mostly.)
I love comparison between the Mosquito and the Fighters like the P38. The Mosquito is a two seat bomber with an internal bomb bay. It was a bomber so good that it was also used as a night fighter, ground attack, mobile artillery platform” Mollins 57mm artillery piece”, it also could be loaded with 8 x 60Lb Rockets and bombs to attack ground or sea targets it was a true multi role aircraft. The composite structure of the advanced fuselage was developed from the Comet race plane using a plywood skin. balsa spacer and plywood skin glued and laminated. The fuselage was built on moulds, it was so strong, it did not need a frame structure as the strength was in fuselage skin, the Composite structure is still in use today, in racing cars space craft etc, I am sure Greg covers that in great detail on his separate presentations on the Mosquito. The Mossie could as a bomber on later models carry a 4000Lb bomb. In Europe at high altitude the Lightning suffered many engine failures and in a dive many where lost due to compressibility causing loss of control, this was never properly resolved. This led to Brigadier General James Doolittle selecting the Mustang as the primary escort fighter, the Lightning was removed from the European theatre of operation due to unreliability of engines compressibility during diving and being outclassed by later German fighters. I would call the Lightning a fighter bomber and the Mosquito a Bomber Fighter. The Mosquito was certainly versatile having two crew enabling airborne radar to be installed. The Pilot flew it and the Navigator concentrated on the target, having a Navigator was especially useful on long distance or night flying with Mosquitos being primary target designators for night time raids (The Pathfinders). As a night fighter they could patrol the bomber routes and track down and destroy German night fighter homing in on the German Airborne radar sets. An astounding aircraft, a Two Seater bomber with a bomb bay being so good it grew into many other roles. A true multi role aircraft.
@@anthonywilson4873 The problem with claiming that the Mosquito was versatile is that they were built in dedicated versions, the fighter couldn't be used as a bomber, it's bomb bay doors couldn't be opened in flight and had to be hand cranked opened on the ground, you couldn't put bombs in it's bomb bay anyways because it wasn't a bomb bay on the fighter variant, it's where the breech ends and ammo of the cannons were. The bomber variant couldn't defend itself because it was completely unarmed, and contrary to what so many people in England believe they had to be escorted and even when they were substantial amounts were shot down, Operation Carthage in March of 1945, when the Luftwaffe was all but eliminated took 30 Mustang's to escort 18 Mosquito's and almost ¼th of them were shot down including some of the Mustang's. Too many people are always making fairytale claims where they'll take the best number's for each version, speed of the fighter, altitude of the PR, bomb load of the bomber etc etc and claim it was a single version of the Mosquito that possessed all those traits along with erroneously claiming they didn't need escorted and could fight their way to a target and back on their own, which simply isn't true on any point. Only the comparison Greg gives here is an honest one when comparing the two because it's the fighter/bomber version of the Mosquito which is what all P38's were, with the exception of the "Droop Snoot" high altitude bomber variant of the P38 with it's glass bomber nose and the PR variant both of which were unarmed but were few and far between. Also it's a myth that P38's were removed from service in England, they saw combat with the 8th Air Force throughout it's entire stay in England and includes it shooting down German fighter's all the way up to the end, and yea they couldn't out dive German fighter's, so what? P38 pilots simply learned quickly not to try that and instead out turn or out climb them both of which they could typically do, you cherry picked an example of them learning a lesson when they first got into combat and imply it was some kind of a problem for it throughout the entire war, they just learned not to do it. The war wasn't only in Europe you know, the P38 had an outstanding record in the Pacific were the Mosquito was completely withdrawal from service, it was the one between the two that was withdrawn from service in a theater not the P38. Your point about the Mosquito's construction is mute, so what about the way it was constructed it still came out the same weight as the P38 anyways, it's construction method wasn't devised because it was superior, it was devised because of a lack of aluminum on England's part, yes it was a brilliant solution to the problem of the designers being told that no further designs would be accepted that involved aluminum in it's construction but it wasn't designed because that's a superior way of building anything, it does have disadvantages after all like delaminating in jungle conditions which is what prompted it's being withdrawn from use in the Pacific.
I remember in the late 1990s loving this game called European Air War. The game had dynamic campaigns and at one time I flew the Luftwaffe campaigns with the Bf109 and another with the Fw190. Getting scrambled for an intercept mission and finding the targets were Mosquitos was disheartening. I couldn't catch them. And when the Mosquitos dropped their ordnance, you can watch them peel away and leave you in the dust. I needed favorable courses to have a chance in intercepting them. But if you were trailing them, good luck.
Apologies if I've mentioned all this here before as I know I've mentioned it a lot in P-38 threads. In the late '60's one of our neighbors who was an Aero Space Engineer and Private Pilot went with his sons and myself to a "P-38 Convention" where Tony LeVier and Tom Lanphier talked about P-38's. Tony was Lockheed's Chief Test Pilot during WWII and Tom was one of the guys who shot down Yamamoto. This was fascinating as they had a film _"P-38 - Called LIGHTING!!!"_ and both guys had extensive experience with the plane. Tony had gone to Europe during the War to work out the problems the plane was having and to visit the different fighter groups flying it and give them a demonstration of what the plane would do. Tony worked out what a lot of the problems were and had Lockheed make up kits to fix the P-38's in Europe. The kits were put on a C-54 and flown to Britain - where the RAF decided the plane was an Fw- 200 - and shot it down ... He (and possibly others) also determined that it's Compressibility Problems could be mitigated with an extra little flap. One of the other problems was the engines blowing up. What Tony figured out - was that the oil was getting to cold at high altitude and losing it's viscosity(?). Here - because of concerns for Compressibility and Engines blowing up - a lot of the pilots were afraid of the airplane. Tony's demonstrations of - just what this plane could really do (in the hands of an experienced pilot) showed the pilots what a great plane they had. The thing with the P-38 - was that it was a prewar design that was doing a lot o things for the first time - ever. So - the Lockheed engineers had a lot to deal with. The other problem - was that if you compare a P-38 to say a P-51 - look at those numbers. There was a lot learned between 38 and 51. For the P-38 - if it was jumped - there were specific things that had to be done in a specific order to go from cruising speed to combat speed - that made that transition difficult for inexperienced pilots. And remember - when the P-38's first showed up - they were going against the Luftwaffe _Experten_ who may have been flying for over 10 years since the early '30's. With the P-51's their throttle combined a number of these functions - so that the pilot didn't have to worry about as many separate control actions to transition from Cruising Speed to Combat Speed. Besides it's problems though - there were a number of things about the plane - that an experienced pilot could take advantage of. One thing was that because of the Allison V1710's Modular Construction - they could flip a cam shaft - and have the engines counter rotate. You could not do that with a Merlin. This provided a very steady gun platform but also - there were things an experienced pilot could to. Adolf Galland said of the P-38 that it had the same problem with slow rolling as their Me- 110 - but - it did not if you knew what to do. With a P-38 - you could *_Blit_* an engine, increasing the throttle on it momentarily - to have the *_TORQUE_* of the engine roll the aircraft. Now - this was a problem for pilots who lost an engine on take off - then - increased the throttle for the remaining engine to make up for the lost power. Torque would roll the airplane right over and into the ground it would go. Corsairs had a similar problem and so did B-26's (_"One A Day At Tampa Bay"_). But - If you knew how to manage it - the torque of the engine could be a tool you could use to help maneuver the aircraft. The American Pilots in Europe - afraid of their engines blowing up - were not going to do that - until Tony showed them you could. The other thing about the P-38 - was that it had this gigantic elevator. The thing would loop like a son of a bitch. Lanphier illustrated this with a story. In the weeks after his participation in shooting down Yamamoto - he had this Marine Corsair pilot who was determined to show him that he wasn't so special - by bouncing his plane when he came in to land. Lanphier didn't like that - so - one day he saw this this guy coming - *_AS HE WAS LANDING_* - and he pulled his P-38 up into a loop. Lanphier knew that - even that close to the ground - the P-38 could complete the loop and the Corsair could not. What he did not anticipate - was that the Corsair pilot would try to follow him in the loop. He said he felt bad about that to that day as the Corsair pilot died. There was a P-38 pilot in Britain who beat a Spitfire in Mock Combat - because - instead of just turning in a dog fight - the P-38 could cut across the circle they were making - by going versicle. Now - I'm unsure about the exact details of the usage of these two techniques - but - what a pilot could do ... Was instead of using his aleurones to roll his aircraft into a turn - he could half loop the plane using the elevator - and then - Blit one of the engines to roll the plane upright. The problem was - you had to be an experienced pilot to pull that off. You had to Blit the engine to use the right amount of torque to rotate it - as if you used to much -you would rotate to far and if you used to little you'd not rotate enough. Lanphier - the flight leader in the Killer Flight assigned to get Yamamoto - was an experienced P-38 pilot. There are those who say he could not have engaged one of the escorts and then engaged the bomber - but - HE could. They P-38 was one of the most maneuverable aircraft in the world - IF - you knew how to do it. If you used the selective torque of the engines and that massive elevator - to fly "Out of the Box" so to speak - you could out fly just about anything. Most people couldn't do that though because they didn't know how - and/or were afraid to learn. .
Great post but just one little thing, to reverse the engine the crank shaft was turned around not the cam, and it's cams not cam, there was one on each head, but you didn't mess with them, to reverse the engine; Turn the crank around. Rearrange spark plug wires on 4 of the 6 cylinders on the right bank only. And bolt on a small gear to the rear of the engine that reverses all necessary pumps and the supercharger so everything necessary turns in the correct direction, ie hydraulic pump, coolant pump, air pump etc etc. The Allison V-1710 engine was the best V configuration aircraft engine made, instead of being just a great big car engine it was truly designed for military applications, it was designed as a modular engine that was easily reversible, and so it could be easily adapted for other machines like tanks, boats or anything else with minimal alterations that might require a powerful engine, even it's single stage supercharger was better than all others and is another feature that makes it so easily adapted to other machines, instead of having special superchargers with different sizes of impellers to optimize it for different altitudes it had 4 different gear ratio's that could be installed in it to optimize it for everywhere from sea level to medium altitude, and only required 2 sets of gears because with each set you simply changed the position of 2 of the gears to give you the two drive speeds available for that gear set, later war versions had 5 possible drive speeds for the supercharger. Despite being 60 ci bigger than the Merlin the Allison was smaller in it's cross section making it more aerodynamic, it was lighter and has less moving parts, it took less steps and less man hours to produce and was more robust than the Merlin lasting longer in between rebuilds. All of the Allison's features that put it above all the other engine's of it's type are overshadowed by the P51 story that if you understand it ignores supercharger types and development timelines. I recently discovered that after a certain point Dutch Kindelberger was offered the newly developed 2 stage supercharger variant of the Allison engine late in the P51's development before P51 production was set up, the same hydrocoupled variable speed 2nd stage supercharger that went in the P63 King Cobra and the Twin Mustang, but he turned it down because of the 2nd stage being an accessory drive at the rear of the engine that took up more room and would have required him to redesign the front of the P51 which he didn't want to do, plus if he'd have opted for the new Allison that meant initial production would be delayed and he wanted his self imposed deadline met which means he could start selling planes faster and get much needed money rolling into the company, he knew it was only a matter of time and the 2 stage Packard Merlin would be available with it's more compact one piece 2 stage supercharger that would be easy to adapt to the P51, in the meantime by rejecting the Allison 2 stage he forced everyone into the position of waiting on the 2 stage Merlin so he could start selling planes right away because even with a single stage engine country's desperately needed aircraft, the turbo being dropped from the P39 and P40 so they could rush them through development and start getting them to country's that desperately needed aircraft is proof of that and something that wasn't wasted on Kindelberger who wanted to start selling planes, even the A36 variant was a trick played on Congress to keep the assembly line moving after the initial order of Mustang's was delivered to the RAF.
While I am a big fan of Greg's brilliant Wright brothers content.. whenever he covers WW2 aircraft it's time to stop all else and enjoy. Thank you, sir.
I used to know some WW2 Mosquito pilots. They loved their airplanes. They were amazing fellows. I enjoyed listening to their devotion to the 'wooden wonders'. Thank you for reminding me of those conversations. The flying club I briefly belonged to was restoring and maintaining Harvard Trainers.( T6 Texans to the Americans).
Great video, Greg. I always enjoy your detailed analysis, which often leads to different results than one gets from "analysis" driven by, say, national pride or nostalgic pilot memories.
Excellent comparison of two planes, based on well selected models and their associated technical and performance characteristics. Would not normally though of comparing the two. Nicely done.
Fascinating and well-researched, as always. I think the results reflect the very different intended uses of the aircraft. The P38 was always designed to "mix it" with single-engine/single-seat fighters (it had varied success in this role), while the Mossie was never really intended for that purpose, even in its fighter-bomber versions. The FB Mosquito's are essentially an adaptation of what was designed to be an unarmed bomber into an armed "strike fighter" intended to strafe and bomb and perhaps take out an enemy aircraft if it had the opportunity. On the other hand, the night-fighter versions of the Mosquito were formidable anti-aircraft platforms, in the very specialized night-fighting arena. Please do keep up the excellent work! Your videos are always very informative and interesting!
I've been waiting for this. How is it that Greg just happens to be answering my most Burning Question of all WW2 aviation. Heavy fighter or Scnhell bomber.
There's also the matter of workload. The Mossie having two crew members will tend to be less taxing on the pilot by dividing some of the responsibilities, including watching out for enemy fighters.
Something to take into consideration is, the Mosqueto was designed as a bomber and the P38 was designed as a fighter. Both were so adaptable, that they could be modified for other missions. The results shown here, are exactly what I expected. If I was to go on a ground attack mission, I'd take the Mosqueto, but if in air to air, I'd take the P38. Like previously said, both aircraft could do both jobs, which is the beginnings of the modern multi-roll fighter.
Air to air, I would go for a Spitfire or a Mustang. The P38 & Mosquito were two of the few twin engined fighters (OK, fighter bomber for the Mozzie) which could "hold their own" against single engined fighters. Heinz Knoke in "I Flew for the Fuhrer" warns against taking success against a Mosquito for granted
@@Sherwoody I think the "cabinetmaker" trope is a bit overdone. DeHavilland made wooden planes for years. They either still employed, or knew where to find, people with experience in the field. I pointed out above that neither the USA nor Germany had success with new designs of wooden planes during WW2, & there is no question that the USA had many craftsmen available capable of making very fine furniture, indeed.
@@bryanwheeler1608 true, they did make wooden planes for years but not thousands of them. Unless the information I looked up was wrong, the cost of producing a P-38 was around $100,000, a Mossie was around £9,000. The Mosquito was also built in Canada and Australia, and not just Britain. The main takeaway I got from the video that the Mosquito was a bomber that could fight, and the Lightning was a fighter that could bomb.
As a general comment to your site. I must say you are one of the few on social media that is brilliant at taking aircraft apart and giving me All the facts. All the facts explain so many aspects of design, available technology of the time, where it operated and what the pilots were asked to do with it. Superb stuff.
Very interesting and thorough, as always Greg. For me, I have never really considered the two types in the same class. As I understand it, the P-38 was designed from the outset as a day fighter/interceptor, whereas the Mosquito was designed as a high-speed, unarmed bomber. Although later developed as a fighter, the RAF never really considered the Mosquito as a pure fighter as such, being more an intruder/fighter bomber and, of course, a nightfighter. Another major difference was that the Mosquito was designed to have a two man crew and, as far as all the accounts I have read confirm, only ever operated with 2 crew.
Great stuff as always, Greg, thanks! The Mosquito bombers also had a split windscreen, made flat on the fighter-bomber version so as not to affect lateral gun and rocket aiming. I forget offhand how many more knots that gave it but it was more than just a few.
Two amazing planes flown by equally amazing men. What was amazing about the Mosquito is due to the wood used in construction the men and women used to make them, were not taken from other production lines of metal airplanes. Wood, unlike metal was also in plentiful supply.
I really like your videos. An almost impossible task of bringing 2 completely different design starting points to an understandable meaningful comparison. One designed as a bomber using what the manufacturer was comfortable with; the other designed as fighter with the latest available tech at that time. Both converging to probably the first 2 effective multirole aircraft in military aviation.
When I was in highschool, my history teacher was a P38 pilot in WWII. He said the 38 was a very good fighter and to turn inside a 109, they would chop the power on one engine. He also had the misfortune of running out of fuel over Germany. I don't recall him saying what year that was or even what model P38 he flew but it must have been towards the end of the war because the Germans asked the POW's in his camp if they were willing to fly German fighters against the Soviets. They were to be paid in gold sent to a Swiss bank account for every Soviet plane they shot down but they had to wear their US or British uniforms. Nobody took them up on that offer. He did however stay in the military after the war and went onto flying B52's.
Hi Greg! Thanks for the interesting comparison of these two classic WWII planes! My Father served in the Mediterranean theatre during the war, and was amazed at the climb performance of the P-38's that served there.
Greg, you’re a natural professor, your presentations have the quality of university lectures. I think you ought to qualify as one at this point. You do extensive research and you’re a published author as well aren’t you?
I'm sort of a published author. I wrote an online article on fuel injection that was reprinted in several publications, and I wrote the chapter on supercharging in a book by Jim Kartalamakis about the Alfa Romeo V6. I also self published a book on supercharging, and I'm thinking about writing an aviation book.
Two of the best multi roll airplanes of the time. Always a give and take but it stuck and now and for decades our best fighters / F 14 have followed suit. Kinda sad but the days of a dedicated fighter or interceptor are about gone. I love the F5 and F20 just about anything Jack Northrop had his fingers on, and could never figure out why we didn't have a fleet of them ourselves. Seems the bomber Mafia was still in place in the 60s. Great show, unbiased expertise every time. 😊
Two of my favourite airplanes ever. The mossie is my fav. I’d love to see a video where a cost analysis is made for tonnage of bombs dropped, per airplane dollar, including safety, and per pilot training dollar perhaps comparing the most prolific bomber types of the war. I’ve heard from secondary sources the mossie is the clear winner in terms of bringing back air crew alive and providing best value per bomb dropped for the allies, but in reality I have never seen first hand sources or math to back up those statements. All sorts of strategic metrics these two airplanes excelled at. It would also be great to see cost analysis between these two airplanes with regards to the fighter role as well. It comes as no surprise that the mossie being designed from the get go as a bomber, was better at bomber things; and the lightning being designed as a fighter was better at fighter things. Thanks for another great video Greg!
90% of high octane avgas used by all of the Allies came from the USA. About 1/6 of wartime build Mossies were fitted with Lend Lease Packard Merlins. In 1945 the USA wrote off all but 586 million USD of Britains 21 billion Lend Lease debt.
@@nickdanger3802 are you a robot, or did you respond to the wrong person? 😂 Edit: alright, you’ve got me to bite. All of what you’ve written is completely irrelevant. It’s some sort of cherry picked flag waving muppet logic from the land of Trumpism’s accounting and economics ->You’re attempting to politicize something for no reason. 1. It doesn’t matter what is gifted, as materials and labour costs something. Labour can be allocated to different projects that take more or less time. The same goes with fuel, and raw building materials. If a Mossie takes 2000 man hours to build versus a P-38 that takes 5000 man hours to build, the production would be better allocated to the Mossie given similar statistical trades versus enemy tonnage. 2. Pilot training is also relevant because it 1 Lancaster requires a single pilot, and if 3 Mossies were to carry the same payload, it accounts for 3 pilots.
@@drewski5730 How is cost benefit to be determined without including virtually free avgas and engines for Mossie ? USA spent almost 3 times as much as Britain, so cost was not nearly as significant for the USA. Rob Ott
Really enjoyed this video Greg. Please keep them coming. Glad to comment for... youtube stuff. The P38 has the disadvantage of being designed before the war had begun. While a year or so may not seem like much in the late 1930s the technology was developing very quickly. There are not many aircraft designed before the war began that were still (with upgrades) very capable by the end of war. In contrast the mossie is impressive, at least to me, because it was effective with a minimal need for strategic material. Kelly Johnson and Geoffrey de Havilland are both remarkable aircraft designers but in such different ways. Johnson's designs seem to push the proverbial envelope of what is possible while de Havilland designs aircraft from what might be considered yesterday's technology yet manages to produce a remarkable aircraft. If excellent aircraft design was a coin they would be on opposite sides of that coin.
Your comment at the end about how interesting it is that two so different planes had such similar performance is even more interesting when you consider that the Germans weren’t able to get their twin engine fighter anywhere close.
The choice of a wooden construction was a development from the early 1930s DH 99 racing aircraft. The strategic considerations arose later on but it was certainly a wonderful selling point given the wartime pressure on the supply of all sorts of metals.
Another great video Greg, thanks so much for sharing. You have probably read it but if not, Sir Stanley Hookers autobiography "Not much of an Engineer" goes into quite a lot of detail on the development of supercharger impellers at Rolls Royce, which, as an applied mathematician, he was able to contribute to quite significantly. These impeller designs are probably why the Merlin 21 did so well with just a single stage blower. If you dont have the book let me know and I'll send you my copy as its well worth a read 🙂
I am so pleased that you always go for specific contemporaneous marks. Also that you discuss relationship to doctrine. At what point does logistical train, specific equipment devision and crew factors negate a slight advantage. Quickly I guess.
Greg, you've nailed it as usual! But there's one statistic you didn't cover and if we were discussing these two planes in this day and age, it would come up immediately. Both have comparable performance, both can undertake a variety of missions, so the bottom line is - what is the comparable cost? I understand reliable costings between the two might be hard to come by but surely it's a factor in how many were built and what use they were put to? Looking forward to further episodes!
I’ve been looking forward to another Mosquito video, and it did not disappoint (no surprise there). And I’m sure the next one will be just as good. I’m guessing the special equipment you mentioned is Oboe, but I’ve been wrong before. Quite an interesting piece of kit. Incidentally, if you find yourself near London and haven’t been to the de Havilland Aircraft Museum, I highly recommend it. Even if they only had the prototype Mosquito it would be worth a trip.
Gee was made available and was fitted to 8th AF pathfinders. The Generals didn't understand it. It could easily have allowed the U.S. heavy bombers to have super accurately bombed parallel to the D-Day targets behind the beaches. Thousands (of good guys) could have been saved.
These aircraft converged on surprisingly similar performance from very different starting points. The Lightning was conceived as a high-altitude interceptor and acquired the ability to carry bombs almost incidentally as a response to the needs of the theatres in which it operated. The Mosquito was conceived as a high-speed unarmed night-time bomber and became a night-fighter as a better Beaufighter. That gave it guns, which led to the fighter-bomber role but the guns were more for the air-to-ground part of that. It was never planned as a daytime fighter and so far as I am aware was never used operationally in that role.
Wooden construction also strategically smart. The UK had a large furniture industry and skilled workforce who could be converted to aircraft production.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 the balsa wood came from Ecuador. Again strategically smart - the British could buy it and use it because they had control of the world's oceans. Unlike Germany who had no supply of balsa because of the British/Canadian/American naval blockade.
Very impressive comparison video. I look forward to the follow up. You must know that you've done a thorough job when the only thing that I'd say is that I'd pronounce it as 'mozzie' (soft zeds) rather than 'mossy'. And the 'zed' probably gives away where I'm from. It's amazing how close these totally different planes ended up. Thanks for the video
I Think Greg is not as stupid as some take him for. I think he deliberately mispronounces non US words to provoke comments and keep the algorithm numbers up. It's certainly been very successful to date, so my suggestion is that by all means comment on his pronunciation to help his algorithm, but don't take his mispronunciations personally!
It seems that, at least until late in the war, the biggest problem with both of these planes is there weren’t enough of them. I get the impression that neither of these planes was particularly easy to mass produce. Greg, do you have any opinion on which plane wins the “producibility” category?
Hey Greg. Another good video. I always figured the P38 was pretty comparable to the Mossie, and its pretty clear the Mossie wasn't an ultimate weapon and couldn't just be sent out to do just any mission, and it had to be used in the most advantageous methods possible in order to have its record for low loss rates. Night fighting and high speed bombing missions just aren't that risky compared to acheiving air superiority. I was wondering, have you ever considered doing a video on "super prop" bombers? The Lincoln comes to mind first, but I am sure there's others. There's also interesting things that just never got the momentum behind them due to the war coming to a close. Like the Do335. I always enjoy your videos on such aircraft.
Very interesting. I had always thought of the Mossie as significantly larger than the P-38. Is there a place where there is a comparison of the end-of-war versions? Thank you.
One weird drawback of most P38s is they had to change the counter rotation of the props so that both turned the "wrong way" in that torque worsened rather than reduced the yaw in an engine out. This was because if they counter rotated the "right way" there was buffeting that unsettled gun stability. Bad human factor technically called "2 critical engines". P.S. A great read is the diary of a survivor of the Yamamoto shoot down by p38s. Admiral Ugaki was in an accompanying airplane and tells what it was like having bullets shredding thru the cabin and the looney behavior of some surviving occupants.
Surely it doesn't matter for torque specifically if the props are counter rotating one way or another? There are aerodynamic considerations but opposing vectors cancel no matter which one is +ve and which is -ve, the buffeting is believable though, even on a smaller scale I've observed this with such setups.
They (P38) also suffered from compression problems as did the P47, thye stopped them from high level diving attacks on to bomber streams because they would go beyond there fighting max speed (I think was about .72 the speed of sound) and on occaision would be seen to dive into the ground, problem was identified at Farnborough, and thats why most were changed to low level work or moved to thew Pacific as fighting was at lower levels.
My Grand dad was a British mechanic and engineer during world war 2. He worked on many allied aircraft, including the P38. He also worked on German aircraft as part of reverse engineering. One aircraft he was very fond of was the P38. He always said it was a great aircraft. I personally think there is way too much comparisons between the P38 and Mosquito, as for at least from my perspective they were very different animals with a very big difference, which should never be omitted when comparing these 2 different aircraft. That is the mosquito was designed to have a 2 man crew. This aspect alone separates these 2 aircraft quite radically, as it would even for modern fighters. Please I beg that this aspect to stop being overlooked, almost as if its not an aspect to consider. Thank you for your video Greg
Went to the SAC museum. A comparison video could be made for the B25 and the A26. They had both and it’s amazing how different those can be while also being similar looking…
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles yes. When you stand next to both of them, it is not entirely obvious how different their performance and roles are. I didn’t mean they have similar roles, but similar wingspan, height, length, number engines, …. Often I’ll see planes in flight sims or alone in photos and it’s difficult to get any sense of actual size. Until I saw an Avenger in person, I didn’t realize it was so much larger than a wildcat. The F4 phantom vs any of the contemporary MiGs are another example where the sizes are way different. I was surprised to see how similar the sizes of the A26 and B25 were given just how different they are. I guess that was how I should have worded my original comment.
As per usual a really good presentation. The only comment that I have is regarding the speed comparisons. I am a Mosquito man, it is my favorite aircraft. I do not Harbour a lot of admiration for the lightning. The Mosquito came primarily in two variants, the "B" bomber and the "FB" fighter bomber. The FB was subject to Fighter Commands rules, which stated that the the front windscreen had to be bird strike proof. As a result the windscreen was flat and approximately 6 inches thick. The loss of aerodynamic efficiency due to this flatness and extra weight, compared to the bombers V shaped windscreen would have slowed the Mosquito even more.
Concerning the Mosquito's wooden construction, It really didn't bear much resemblance to earlier conventional wooden aircraft; it was more a precursor to modern composite construction methods and even composite materials to a degree. The designers at DeHavilland were using wood in ways that were pretty innovative and they were able to get very good performance as a result.
1927 Lockheed Vega The fuselage was built from sheets of plywood, skinned over wooden ribs. Using a large concrete mold, a single half of the fuselage shell was laminated in sections with glue between each layer and then a rubber bladder was lowered into the mold and inflated with air to compress the lamination into shape against the inside of the mold. The two fuselage halves were then nailed and glued over a separately constructed rib framework.
@@nickdanger3802 That's arguably more of a semi-monocoque design with all the internal framing Lockheed used. The Mosquito relies much more on the laminated fuselage to bear the loads. Anyway, boat-builders were using a very similar construction technique before it was used in aircraft, so there's that too.
@@nickdanger3802I seem to recall the WW1 Albatross fighter was built using a similar method, so not an untested idea? And apparently in Canada the concrete molding technique was also used for the Mossie?
Love your videos, Greg. Even though I’m just a Challenger 300/600 mechanic, I greatly enjoy the super nitty gritty details of your videos. ESPECIALLY when it comes to the P-38, as may be evident by my profile picture, which is a picture I took in 2014 at an air show in Offutt, Nebraska!
It would be interesting to see some graphs about the speed of the mosquito in its reconnaissance form, as I hear stories of the mossy outpacing enemy fighters but whenever I look at speed graphs that doesn’t seem to be the case.
You haven’t looked at the high altitude lightened PR Mosquito with two stage, intercooled and two speed supercharger engines with their maximum boost increased to benefit from 130 and 150 octane fuel. Only the Me 262 had a chance of catching them.
You have to look at high altitude cruise speed. Even if the 109K was faster, for example. It was not going to climb to the same altitude, then catch a Mosquito. Even if the fighter could exceed its speed, they climbed at a far lower speed, around 1/3 of their maximum speed. They also ran out of gas quickly at full power. The same principles of trigonometry and performance envelops were demonstrated in the Mach-3.3 SR-71 v 4,000+ mach-4 missiles.
@@samuelgordino problem with that claim is there's no RAF loss corresponding to it on the day, which as with all air to air kills makes it a bit suspicious. Not checked the records but heard this second hand.
Is there a way to compare the COSTs of the two planes? (I read somewhere the P-38 design was set up for manufacture in response to an initial request for 49 interceptors, and wasn't ever optimized for production of the multi-thousands eventually produced.)
Seems to be a very good comparison. A major set of factors omitted though are those of produceability. In a UK of the time, not using scarce aluminium, would have allowed many more units to be produced, whilst not impacting other production. The fact that other skill sets and factories were employed was to me a real and major advantage. Sharing the workload around the country, using nonstrategic materials was a master stroke.
I see the situation as a plane conceived as a fast bomber that became an excellent fighter bomber versus a one conceived as a fast fighter that became excellent fighter bomber.
Cheers Greg .. You Make a Valid Point… These planes were designed on different planets… in Example Frank Whittle was much happier in America than England … he couldn’t believe the difference in the attitudes of American government and aircraft industry
In some ways the UK was fighting a different war, for the first half they were wary of invasion or losing the convoy battles. This makes for different attitudes
The (private) ‘public’ school a British officer’s parents paid for determines the top promotion path in the British Armed Forces. There is even bonus pay to cover the next generation’s public school fees. Sergeants don’t get that.
How is the other German more advanced twin engines plane like Ju188, Do335 and Me410. Do they have a chance against P-38G and Mosquito in flying speed?
All of this talk about cooling (or lack thereof) on the P-38 made me think back to Smoky Yunick’s “Adiabatic”, or hot vapor, engines of the 1980s and 1990s. Smokey’s main premise was, we paid for all this heat so we ought to use it. I would love it if Greg made a video discussing Yunick’s engines.
Mosquito was probably a better night fighter. The P38 was designed as a single seat, and the double seat version to accommodate the radar operator looks horrible (and very uncomfortable).
Great videos watch them sometimes with my Dad who is an Engineer . If-the Mosquito had been built of Aluminium it might been lighter? But the wood it needed took a lot of time to prepare. It took a lot of time to repair them at Hatfield.
I wonder if it had been if DH had built it. If they had little to no experience building all-metal aircraft, an early attempt would likely be heavier than absolutely needed. But who knows?
Night fighter Ace Bob Braham relates how on a low level intruder mission in a Mosquito he overhauled and shot down an FW 190, albeit carrying a "long range underslung fuel tank." During the preceding manoeverings he opened the engine cooling flaps to outturn the 190. "Scramble!"
@@richardnixon4062 I think many cases were due to overconfidence on the part of the single engined fighter's pilot. If the Mosquito got a chance to hit you, all those guns would make the outcome fairly certain.
I feel like you nailed it with the thumbnail. FIGHTER/bomber vs fighter/BOMBER. They both started out as one concept and through evolutionary pressure became twin engine multirole aircraft.
Pe-2;Pe-3 here. High-alt fighter project "100" was redesigned as a dive bomber. Though, due to lack of gun production, Pe-3 was in fact granted a very humble firepower.
Not counting Me 210/410 and other initially dual/multi-role projects. P-70 was a bad interceptor, I doubt Ki-46 became a forbidable interceptor
That's a very succinct and accurate description.
I was fortunate enough to work on a Mosquito re-build. The methods of construction were very well conceived, I also learned that there is a lot of metal in a wooden aircraft!
Same thing with beer; a lot of water in it.
Was it an airworthy aircraft or a display ?
@@ottovonbismarck2443
If it were a Flyer then it must've been in Kiwiland...; they're doing Ground-Runs on the 4th Mosquito to be returned to Flight, in Ardmore (according to a "recent" Aeroplane magazine - seamailed to Oz).
When I grew up, Mosquitos were rare and going extinct, because they were all deemed "impossible" to restore once the Termites & Wet Rot set in.
But, in Kiwiland, one may lawfully Homebuild & fly ANYTHING - if it's built of Wood... ; I keep waiting for a Laminated Plywood Boeing 747 or a C-17 to quietly emerge from a Backyard in Dunedin or Tokoroa (!).
Such is life,
Have a good one.
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
did you attach the tail section with a mallet once you glued the two halves together?
I was once involved in a search for a Mossie that went down off Felixstowe. This was in the days when a towed Magnetometer was the main search instrument for underwater wrecks. Our research suggested the only things on a Mosquito which would register would be the engines and engine mounts. Everything else metal was too small.
@@geesehoward700 The "hull" was built in New Zealand and shipped as one.
My solo instructor, Stan Hurbet, was a P-38 test pilot.
His test to sign me off was that I had to wrestle the controls from him on final and say, “it’s my airplane.”
He was strong as a bull, had the Chuck Yeager eyes, and did not suffer fools.
When I asked him about the P-38 testing, his major complaint was that when he rolled it, all the metal shavings from assembly and construction came down into his eyes.
After we landed, he just got out of the airplane, said, go ahead and solo. I’ll be watching.
He stood next to the runway as I taxied back on the grass for RWY 25 at Colts Neck.
Made the best landing ever and taxied up next to him. He just said, give me your logbook.
Signed me off, said tie down the airplane, turned around and walked back to the flight office.
I didn´t know there was a dual control P-38
@@Torfun177don’t think it had but his instructor(they were flying some other plane) had been a test pilot flying the p38
Reminds me of when I read Highest Duty, the memoir of Chesley Sullenberger, the captain who made the miracle landing of an Airbus on the Hudson river. After he first soloed in the 1950s, his instructor simply said something along the lines that he wasn’t surprised since he already knew he could do it.
Satisfying the algorithm with a little comment
Very nice :)
Based and gamer pilled.
Funny
me too!
That's important
Two of my favourite planes starring together in a Greg's video. Half an hour well spent.
A comparison of the Sea Hornet and the Tigercat would be interesting too!👍
Sea hornett?
Really?
Someone has actually heard of it?
@@brucebaxter6923 yeah, but it’s not a fully apples-to-apples comparison as the Sea Hornet was actually deployed on carriers, but the Tigercat never was.
Love them both too, such great looking aircraft
@@brucebaxter6923yep. Greg is all over it
Do you men Bearcat and Sea Fury?
My mum was in the WRAF and there were three other ladies that stuck together! They were station at an English vicarage! One of the ladies know a P38 pilot and his group when they came back from a mission! Would fly around the church spire and the vicar used to come out and shake his first at them and call them naughty boys! So this lad invited them all back for English Afternoon tea! They had never experienced that ever and I have this unique memory of my mum saying they looked really nervous! I just want to say a thank you to those yanks for what they did back then! May my mum, who died in 2019 aged 95 and her WRAF friends and the pilots all R.I.P 😢👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
A classic Greg comparison on 2 classic planes. Well done Greg, thanks.
As a engine geek I always wondered why hot rodding exploded after WW11 and I think I know why. All those maintenance personnel returned after the war with some serious hot rodding chops from working on all number of high performance engines in WW11. Thanks for your great videos.
Hi Greg. I'm a Brit and I am used to other Brits saying how great the Mozzie and the Spitfire were. The thing that I like about your posts is that they are never boasting about how great American aircraft were (and denigrating others) and you always make balanced assessments of the aircraft under discussion. I am not an automotive engineer, but I knew about the compression ratio/knock problem and it came as a surprise to me when I found (courtesy of your videos) out about the boost/octane problem. You produce wonderful stuff. Keep up the good work. P.s. I recall reading somewhere that aside from the Tallboy/ Grand Slam raids, Britain would have been better off using Mosquitos rather than the Lancaster in the night offensive. I'd like to hear your opinion, especially since you are the only one I trust to give an honest assessment. maybe it would be something for another video.
Me too re: a video about the Mosquito replacing heavy bombers.
@@britishamerican4321 Someone has covered this. The main issue being that you need a lot more planes and pilots which couldn't really be supplied.
@@studley2436 Thanks!
" how great the Mozzie and the Spitfire were"
wrt the Mossie - I think this (deserved!) impression of Mossie greatness comes mainly from the period immediately after it was developed and introduced, especially the astonishment that it could outpace the then-variant of the Spitfire. By the end of the war, the Mosquito was much less remarkable.
But also its reputation comes from from the Mossie's night role over Germany and occupied Europe, when it was used (often simultaneously, during the same missions) as a pathfinder bomber, escort nightfighter, and for intrusion work - ground-attacking German nightfighter bases (and other targets) and intercepting German nightfighters when taking-off or (especially) landing. All these roles absolutely require a second crew-member - navigator/ radar operator +/- bomb aimer (for pathfinders).
Apparently, this led to a German legend or mythos of the Mosquito *at night* - ie. an exaggerated impression that the aircraft was lethal and everywhere, all the time! There was a tendency of Germans to blame nearly-all mishaps and losses of all types on the "invincible" Mosquito - as an acceptable explanation, even when Mosquitos were not responsible (and were perhaps not even there).
But that was at night; by contrast in most of its uses as a "heavy fighter", the Mosquito was (I think) perceived more like a faster and nimbler Bristol Beaufighter - with greater bomb capacity; better for most (not all) jobs, but significantly less rugged.
In general - when comparing with the Lightning - the strange thing is that these two aircraft *converged* so strikingly in their multi-role usage over time. This was perhaps even more remarkable for the Lightning; since an escort fighter is probably a much more conceptually specialized role than that of the type of a twin-crew, twin-engined "Schnellbomber" - which seems always to have been regarded as a suitable basis for multiple uses.
In sum - I would say that the Main difference between Mosquito and Lightning is related to the provision of a second crew member - who brings both extra possibilities for usage, but also entails reduction of performance from the necessarily increased weight and air-resistance consequences.
Don't get me started about the Mossie vs. The Castrated Lightnings. The U.S. State and War Departments blocked sales of P-38's to Britain before Pearl Harbor, because they feared Germany would win and capture the turbocharger technology. So Lockheed built the P-322, with mechanical superchargers, and produced a beautifully stable gun and bombing platform, with a top speed only a little faster than a Hudson, and a service ceiling of around 12,000 feet! (Gack!)
The Mosquito was designed and built almost on a dare, because deHavilland wanted a military contract so they could proudly say "We helped win the Air War!" and point to their product. Problem was - limited materials for aircraft not already designed and contracted. At least, metals.
So, they designed and built what was, for a Long Time, the World's Fastest, most maneuverable, heaviest-armed flying model airplane. Two Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, a pilot, a B/N, 4-8 guns and up to 4,000 lbs. of bombs, all wrapped in birch and balsa laminated plywood!
Greg has a consistent winning style and honesty of content with these videos. They are a delight.
I am a bit embarrassed that I find all this aviation nerd stuff so fascinating. Thank you. Well done.
why be embarrassed?
@@SoloRenegadeIt's certainly something to pick and choose the people to discuss it with lol
Oh please, I never talk to people like me 😊
@@NS-hs6lt I pick and choose who to discuss aviation with too, as most people aren't interested or don't care, but I'm Never embarrassed by it.
Fascinating in-depth comparison. I had seen how similar the two aircraft are by my much more superficial comparison. What I have concluded in the past was that the mosquito is the better bomber and the P-38 the better fighter, though both are very capable multi-role aircraft. I think both contributed to the development of the idea of the multi-role fighter bomber which has endured to this day.
Mossies were not multirole, FB''s had a max internal bombload of 500 lb, bombers and PR had no guns or cannon.
All P38's except PR had four .50's and one 20mm. Late war P38's had a max load of 4,000 lb of conventional bombs.
It’s even more interesting to compare to recent history - the US took a fighter, the F-15, and turned it into a bomber while the Brits took a bomber, the Tornado, and turned it into a fighter/interceptor…
Echoes of the past!
i dont think its a fair comparison at all. one was a state of the art fighter made by an aircraft manufacture and the other was a light bomber made by people that made cupboards and wardrobes that inherited a whole punch of roles because the planes in them were obsolete. compare a westland whirlwind to a p-38 if you want but mosquito should go up against a do-17, ju-88, or B-25/26
@@nickdanger3802 Pierre Clostermann pointed out in "Flames in the Sky" that the later version P38s could carry a similar weight of bombs to that of a B17 (obviously not as many bombs, which only makes the comparison valid in some missions). He also was not quite so complimentary of their qualities as a fighter, referring to the early times when P38s trying to dogfight Zeros had high losses. After they developed tactics which nullified the latter's advantages did they perform well against them.
@@geesehoward700 DeHavilland had been making aircraft for years, & the specialist workers weren't people "who made cupboards & wardrobes". Both Germany & the USA tried to build wooden aircraft emulating the Mosquito's success, but both cases were unsuccessful. As fighter bombers, both should be compared to the opposition they would come up against, like BF109s, FW190s, or Zeros.
Just watched a second time. This is the best vid of its type anywhere. I mean that. The mosquito has become so legendary that you can’t separate the wheat from the chaff.
We all really needed a credible, expert analysis of the empirical evidence to start to gain a true feel for such an unusual for WW2 aircraft.
Thank you so much for taking this on!!!
-Gene
Enjoying this - thanks. It's surprising how similar these are, considering the Mosquito was designed as a two-man bomber, and the Lighting as a single engined fighter.
I've read several memoirs about flying the Mossie, and the missions described always required a second crew-member i.e. navigator/ radar operator (these books were about nightfighting and anti-shipping missions, mostly.)
I'm sorry I'll read that again! "the Lighting as a single crew fighter. "
I love comparison between the Mosquito and the Fighters like the P38. The Mosquito is a two seat bomber with an internal bomb bay. It was a bomber so good that it was also used as a night fighter, ground attack, mobile artillery platform” Mollins 57mm artillery piece”, it also could be loaded with 8 x 60Lb Rockets and bombs to attack ground or sea targets it was a true multi role aircraft. The composite structure of the advanced fuselage was developed from the Comet race plane using a plywood skin. balsa spacer and plywood skin glued and laminated. The fuselage was built on moulds, it was so strong, it did not need a frame structure as the strength was in fuselage skin, the Composite structure is still in use today, in racing cars space craft etc, I am sure Greg covers that in great detail on his separate presentations on the Mosquito. The Mossie could as a bomber on later models carry a 4000Lb bomb. In Europe at high altitude the Lightning suffered many engine failures and in a dive many where lost due to compressibility causing loss of control, this was never properly resolved. This led to Brigadier General James Doolittle selecting the Mustang as the primary escort fighter, the Lightning was removed from the European theatre of operation due to unreliability of engines compressibility during diving and being outclassed by later German fighters. I would call the Lightning a fighter bomber and the Mosquito a Bomber Fighter. The Mosquito was certainly versatile having two crew enabling airborne radar to be installed. The Pilot flew it and the Navigator concentrated on the target, having a Navigator was especially useful on long distance or night flying with Mosquitos being primary target designators for night time raids (The Pathfinders). As a night fighter they could patrol the bomber routes and track down and destroy German night fighter homing in on the German Airborne radar sets. An astounding aircraft, a Two Seater bomber with a bomb bay being so good it grew into many other roles. A true multi role aircraft.
I have to agree. I have never read an account of a Mosquito on operations having only a pilot.
@@anthonywilson4873
The problem with claiming that the Mosquito was versatile is that they were built in dedicated versions, the fighter couldn't be used as a bomber, it's bomb bay doors couldn't be opened in flight and had to be hand cranked opened on the ground, you couldn't put bombs in it's bomb bay anyways because it wasn't a bomb bay on the fighter variant, it's where the breech ends and ammo of the cannons were.
The bomber variant couldn't defend itself because it was completely unarmed, and contrary to what so many people in England believe they had to be escorted and even when they were substantial amounts were shot down, Operation Carthage in March of 1945, when the Luftwaffe was all but eliminated took 30 Mustang's to escort 18 Mosquito's and almost ¼th of them were shot down including some of the Mustang's.
Too many people are always making fairytale claims where they'll take the best number's for each version, speed of the fighter, altitude of the PR, bomb load of the bomber etc etc and claim it was a single version of the Mosquito that possessed all those traits along with erroneously claiming they didn't need escorted and could fight their way to a target and back on their own, which simply isn't true on any point.
Only the comparison Greg gives here is an honest one when comparing the two because it's the fighter/bomber version of the Mosquito which is what all P38's were, with the exception of the "Droop Snoot" high altitude bomber variant of the P38 with it's glass bomber nose and the PR variant both of which were unarmed but were few and far between.
Also it's a myth that P38's were removed from service in England, they saw combat with the 8th Air Force throughout it's entire stay in England and includes it shooting down German fighter's all the way up to the end, and yea they couldn't out dive German fighter's, so what? P38 pilots simply learned quickly not to try that and instead out turn or out climb them both of which they could typically do, you cherry picked an example of them learning a lesson when they first got into combat and imply it was some kind of a problem for it throughout the entire war, they just learned not to do it.
The war wasn't only in Europe you know, the P38 had an outstanding record in the Pacific were the Mosquito was completely withdrawal from service, it was the one between the two that was withdrawn from service in a theater not the P38.
Your point about the Mosquito's construction is mute, so what about the way it was constructed it still came out the same weight as the P38 anyways, it's construction method wasn't devised because it was superior, it was devised because of a lack of aluminum on England's part, yes it was a brilliant solution to the problem of the designers being told that no further designs would be accepted that involved aluminum in it's construction but it wasn't designed because that's a superior way of building anything, it does have disadvantages after all like delaminating in jungle conditions which is what prompted it's being withdrawn from use in the Pacific.
@@dukecraig2402Kuh-ching!
I remember in the late 1990s loving this game called European Air War. The game had dynamic campaigns and at one time I flew the Luftwaffe campaigns with the Bf109 and another with the Fw190. Getting scrambled for an intercept mission and finding the targets were Mosquitos was disheartening. I couldn't catch them. And when the Mosquitos dropped their ordnance, you can watch them peel away and leave you in the dust. I needed favorable courses to have a chance in intercepting them. But if you were trailing them, good luck.
Apologies if I've mentioned all this here before as I know I've mentioned it a lot in P-38 threads.
In the late '60's one of our neighbors who was an Aero Space Engineer and Private Pilot went with his sons and myself to a "P-38 Convention" where Tony LeVier and Tom Lanphier talked about P-38's. Tony was Lockheed's Chief Test Pilot during WWII and Tom was one of the guys who shot down Yamamoto.
This was fascinating as they had a film _"P-38 - Called LIGHTING!!!"_ and both guys had extensive experience with the plane.
Tony had gone to Europe during the War to work out the problems the plane was having and to visit the different fighter groups flying it and give them a demonstration of what the plane would do. Tony worked out what a lot of the problems were and had Lockheed make up kits to fix the P-38's in Europe. The kits were put on a C-54 and flown to Britain - where the RAF decided the plane was an Fw- 200 - and shot it down ...
He (and possibly others) also determined that it's Compressibility Problems could be mitigated with an extra little flap.
One of the other problems was the engines blowing up. What Tony figured out - was that the oil was getting to cold at high altitude and losing it's viscosity(?).
Here - because of concerns for Compressibility and Engines blowing up - a lot of the pilots were afraid of the airplane. Tony's demonstrations of - just what this plane could really do (in the hands of an experienced pilot) showed the pilots what a great plane they had.
The thing with the P-38 - was that it was a prewar design that was doing a lot o things for the first time - ever. So - the Lockheed engineers had a lot to deal with.
The other problem - was that if you compare a P-38 to say a P-51 - look at those numbers. There was a lot learned between 38 and 51. For the P-38 - if it was jumped - there were specific things that had to be done in a specific order to go from cruising speed to combat speed - that made that transition difficult for inexperienced pilots. And remember - when the P-38's first showed up - they were going against the Luftwaffe _Experten_ who may have been flying for over 10 years since the early '30's. With the P-51's their throttle combined a number of these functions - so that the pilot didn't have to worry about as many separate control actions to transition from Cruising Speed to Combat Speed.
Besides it's problems though - there were a number of things about the plane - that an experienced pilot could take advantage of.
One thing was that because of the Allison V1710's Modular Construction - they could flip a cam shaft - and have the engines counter rotate. You could not do that with a Merlin. This provided a very steady gun platform but also - there were things an experienced pilot could to.
Adolf Galland said of the P-38 that it had the same problem with slow rolling as their Me- 110 - but - it did not if you knew what to do.
With a P-38 - you could *_Blit_* an engine, increasing the throttle on it momentarily - to have the *_TORQUE_* of the engine roll the aircraft. Now - this was a problem for pilots who lost an engine on take off - then - increased the throttle for the remaining engine to make up for the lost power. Torque would roll the airplane right over and into the ground it would go. Corsairs had a similar problem and so did B-26's (_"One A Day At Tampa Bay"_).
But -
If you knew how to manage it - the torque of the engine could be a tool you could use to help maneuver the aircraft.
The American Pilots in Europe - afraid of their engines blowing up - were not going to do that - until Tony showed them you could.
The other thing about the P-38 - was that it had this gigantic elevator. The thing would loop like a son of a bitch.
Lanphier illustrated this with a story.
In the weeks after his participation in shooting down Yamamoto - he had this Marine Corsair pilot who was determined to show him that he wasn't so special - by bouncing his plane when he came in to land. Lanphier didn't like that - so - one day he saw this this guy coming - *_AS HE WAS LANDING_* - and he pulled his P-38 up into a loop. Lanphier knew that - even that close to the ground - the P-38 could complete the loop and the Corsair could not. What he did not anticipate - was that the Corsair pilot would try to follow him in the loop. He said he felt bad about that to that day as the Corsair pilot died.
There was a P-38 pilot in Britain who beat a Spitfire in Mock Combat - because - instead of just turning in a dog fight - the P-38 could cut across the circle they were making - by going versicle.
Now - I'm unsure about the exact details of the usage of these two techniques - but - what a pilot could do ...
Was instead of using his aleurones to roll his aircraft into a turn - he could half loop the plane using the elevator - and then - Blit one of the engines to roll the plane upright.
The problem was - you had to be an experienced pilot to pull that off. You had to Blit the engine to use the right amount of torque to rotate it - as if you used to much -you would rotate to far and if you used to little you'd not rotate enough.
Lanphier - the flight leader in the Killer Flight assigned to get Yamamoto - was an experienced P-38 pilot. There are those who say he could not have engaged one of the escorts and then engaged the bomber - but - HE could.
They P-38 was one of the most maneuverable aircraft in the world - IF - you knew how to do it.
If you used the selective torque of the engines and that massive elevator - to fly "Out of the Box" so to speak - you could out fly just about anything. Most people couldn't do that though because they didn't know how - and/or were afraid to learn.
.
@BobSmith-dk8nw Interesting, thanks for the info. A technologically mature, manueverable P-38 would be a lethal fighter indeed.
An interesting read, thanks.
Thanks for sharing that.
Thank you. The P-38 was an experts aircraft when far too many were fresh out of flight school.
Great post but just one little thing, to reverse the engine the crank shaft was turned around not the cam, and it's cams not cam, there was one on each head, but you didn't mess with them, to reverse the engine;
Turn the crank around.
Rearrange spark plug wires on 4 of the 6 cylinders on the right bank only.
And bolt on a small gear to the rear of the engine that reverses all necessary pumps and the supercharger so everything necessary turns in the correct direction, ie hydraulic pump, coolant pump, air pump etc etc.
The Allison V-1710 engine was the best V configuration aircraft engine made, instead of being just a great big car engine it was truly designed for military applications, it was designed as a modular engine that was easily reversible, and so it could be easily adapted for other machines like tanks, boats or anything else with minimal alterations that might require a powerful engine, even it's single stage supercharger was better than all others and is another feature that makes it so easily adapted to other machines, instead of having special superchargers with different sizes of impellers to optimize it for different altitudes it had 4 different gear ratio's that could be installed in it to optimize it for everywhere from sea level to medium altitude, and only required 2 sets of gears because with each set you simply changed the position of 2 of the gears to give you the two drive speeds available for that gear set, later war versions had 5 possible drive speeds for the supercharger.
Despite being 60 ci bigger than the Merlin the Allison was smaller in it's cross section making it more aerodynamic, it was lighter and has less moving parts, it took less steps and less man hours to produce and was more robust than the Merlin lasting longer in between rebuilds.
All of the Allison's features that put it above all the other engine's of it's type are overshadowed by the P51 story that if you understand it ignores supercharger types and development timelines.
I recently discovered that after a certain point Dutch Kindelberger was offered the newly developed 2 stage supercharger variant of the Allison engine late in the P51's development before P51 production was set up, the same hydrocoupled variable speed 2nd stage supercharger that went in the P63 King Cobra and the Twin Mustang, but he turned it down because of the 2nd stage being an accessory drive at the rear of the engine that took up more room and would have required him to redesign the front of the P51 which he didn't want to do, plus if he'd have opted for the new Allison that meant initial production would be delayed and he wanted his self imposed deadline met which means he could start selling planes faster and get much needed money rolling into the company, he knew it was only a matter of time and the 2 stage Packard Merlin would be available with it's more compact one piece 2 stage supercharger that would be easy to adapt to the P51, in the meantime by rejecting the Allison 2 stage he forced everyone into the position of waiting on the 2 stage Merlin so he could start selling planes right away because even with a single stage engine country's desperately needed aircraft, the turbo being dropped from the P39 and P40 so they could rush them through development and start getting them to country's that desperately needed aircraft is proof of that and something that wasn't wasted on Kindelberger who wanted to start selling planes, even the A36 variant was a trick played on Congress to keep the assembly line moving after the initial order of Mustang's was delivered to the RAF.
While I am a big fan of Greg's brilliant Wright brothers content.. whenever he covers WW2 aircraft it's time to stop all else and enjoy. Thank you, sir.
I used to know some WW2 Mosquito pilots. They loved their airplanes. They were amazing fellows. I enjoyed listening to their devotion to the 'wooden wonders'.
Thank you for reminding me of those conversations.
The flying club I briefly belonged to was restoring and maintaining Harvard Trainers.( T6 Texans to the Americans).
Great video, Greg. I always enjoy your detailed analysis, which often leads to different results than one gets from "analysis" driven by, say, national pride or nostalgic pilot memories.
Excellent comparison of two planes, based on well selected models and their associated technical and performance characteristics. Would not normally though of comparing the two. Nicely done.
Thanks for the comparison, two of the most iconic planes ever
A friend of mine did all the mechanical work on the first Mosquito built here in New Zealand. Took him 7 years to do it.
Fascinating and well-researched, as always. I think the results reflect the very different intended uses of the aircraft. The P38 was always designed to "mix it" with single-engine/single-seat fighters (it had varied success in this role), while the Mossie was never really intended for that purpose, even in its fighter-bomber versions. The FB Mosquito's are essentially an adaptation of what was designed to be an unarmed bomber into an armed "strike fighter" intended to strafe and bomb and perhaps take out an enemy aircraft if it had the opportunity.
On the other hand, the night-fighter versions of the Mosquito were formidable anti-aircraft platforms, in the very specialized night-fighting arena.
Please do keep up the excellent work! Your videos are always very informative and interesting!
I've been waiting for this. How is it that Greg just happens to be answering my most Burning Question of all WW2 aviation. Heavy fighter or Scnhell bomber.
I think we all pretty much expect excellence, but you crushed it with this video-I eagerly await the following videos.
There's also the matter of workload.
The Mossie having two crew members will tend to be less taxing on the pilot by dividing some of the responsibilities, including watching out for enemy fighters.
My favorite channel...So glad you're coming out with more stuff
Something to take into consideration is, the Mosqueto was designed as a bomber and the P38 was designed as a fighter. Both were so adaptable, that they could be modified for other missions. The results shown here, are exactly what I expected.
If I was to go on a ground attack mission, I'd take the Mosqueto, but if in air to air, I'd take the P38. Like previously said, both aircraft could do both jobs, which is the beginnings of the modern multi-roll fighter.
The Mosquito was also built using fewer strategic materials and could employ a workforce that would normally build cabinets.
Air to air, I would go for a Spitfire or a Mustang. The P38 & Mosquito were two of the few twin engined fighters (OK, fighter bomber for the Mozzie) which could "hold their own" against single engined fighters. Heinz Knoke in "I Flew for the Fuhrer" warns against taking success against a Mosquito for granted
@@Sherwoody I think the "cabinetmaker" trope is a bit overdone. DeHavilland made wooden planes for years. They either still employed, or knew where to find, people with experience in the field. I pointed out above that neither the USA nor Germany had success with new designs of wooden planes during WW2, & there is no question that the USA had many craftsmen available capable of making very fine furniture, indeed.
@@bryanwheeler1608 true, they did make wooden planes for years but not thousands of them. Unless the information I looked up was wrong, the cost of producing a P-38 was around $100,000, a Mossie was around £9,000. The Mosquito was also built in Canada and Australia, and not just Britain.
The main takeaway I got from the video that the Mosquito was a bomber that could fight, and the Lightning was a fighter that could bomb.
@@bryanwheeler1608 I was simpmy comparing the Mosqueto to the P38, nothing else.
As a general comment to your site. I must say you are one of the few on social media that is brilliant at taking aircraft apart and giving me All the facts.
All the facts explain so many aspects of design, available technology of the time, where it operated and what the pilots were asked to do with it.
Superb stuff.
Very interesting and thorough, as always Greg. For me, I have never really considered the two types in the same class. As I understand it, the P-38 was designed from the outset as a day fighter/interceptor, whereas the Mosquito was designed as a high-speed, unarmed bomber. Although later developed as a fighter, the RAF never really considered the Mosquito as a pure fighter as such, being more an intruder/fighter bomber and, of course, a nightfighter. Another major difference was that the Mosquito was designed to have a two man crew and, as far as all the accounts I have read confirm, only ever operated with 2 crew.
It was very positive that we had both on our side.
Great stuff as always, Greg, thanks!
The Mosquito bombers also had a split windscreen, made flat on the fighter-bomber version so as not to affect lateral gun and rocket aiming. I forget offhand how many more knots that gave it but it was more than just a few.
Good point.
The FB.VI was around 10mph slower than the B,IV.
Two amazing planes flown by equally amazing men. What was amazing about the Mosquito is due to the wood used in construction the men and women used to make them, were not taken from other production lines of metal airplanes. Wood, unlike metal was also in plentiful supply.
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“Mossie” pronounced “Mozzie”.
I really like your videos. An almost impossible task of bringing 2 completely different design starting points to an understandable meaningful comparison. One designed as a bomber using what the manufacturer was comfortable with; the other designed as fighter with the latest available tech at that time. Both converging to probably the first 2 effective multirole aircraft in military aviation.
16:16 robert klingman taking out a late model dinah with his corsair's prop always comes to mind with this slick type
I love this channel so much. Thanks for your hard work!
When I was in highschool, my history teacher was a P38 pilot in WWII. He said the 38 was a very good fighter and to turn inside a 109, they would chop the power on one engine. He also had the misfortune of running out of fuel over Germany. I don't recall him saying what year that was or even what model P38 he flew but it must have been towards the end of the war because the Germans asked the POW's in his camp if they were willing to fly German fighters against the Soviets. They were to be paid in gold sent to a Swiss bank account for every Soviet plane they shot down but they had to wear their US or British uniforms. Nobody took them up on that offer. He did however stay in the military after the war and went onto flying B52's.
Hi Greg! Thanks for the interesting comparison of these two classic WWII planes! My Father served in the Mediterranean theatre during the war, and was amazed at the climb performance of the P-38's that served there.
Greg, you’re a natural professor, your presentations have the quality of university lectures. I think you ought to qualify as one at this point. You do extensive research and you’re a published author as well aren’t you?
I'm sort of a published author. I wrote an online article on fuel injection that was reprinted in several publications, and I wrote the chapter on supercharging in a book by Jim Kartalamakis about the Alfa Romeo V6. I also self published a book on supercharging, and I'm thinking about writing an aviation book.
Two of the best multi roll airplanes of the time. Always a give and take but it stuck and now and for decades our best fighters / F 14 have followed suit.
Kinda sad but the days of a dedicated fighter or interceptor are about gone.
I love the F5 and F20 just about anything Jack Northrop had his fingers on, and could never figure out why we didn't have a fleet of them ourselves. Seems the bomber Mafia was still in place in the 60s. Great show, unbiased expertise every time. 😊
So basically, if you have both of these aircraft in your arsenal, you're covered. Excellent video.
I'm writing an RPG right now which uses a lot of WW2 planes, and your videos are extremely helpful
That sounds great.
Two of my favourite airplanes ever. The mossie is my fav.
I’d love to see a video where a cost analysis is made for tonnage of bombs dropped, per airplane dollar, including safety, and per pilot training dollar perhaps comparing the most prolific bomber types of the war. I’ve heard from secondary sources the mossie is the clear winner in terms of bringing back air crew alive and providing best value per bomb dropped for the allies, but in reality I have never seen first hand sources or math to back up those statements. All sorts of strategic metrics these two airplanes excelled at.
It would also be great to see cost analysis between these two airplanes with regards to the fighter role as well.
It comes as no surprise that the mossie being designed from the get go as a bomber, was better at bomber things; and the lightning being designed as a fighter was better at fighter things.
Thanks for another great video Greg!
Interesting points
90% of high octane avgas used by all of the Allies came from the USA.
About 1/6 of wartime build Mossies were fitted with Lend Lease Packard Merlins.
In 1945 the USA wrote off all but 586 million USD of Britains 21 billion Lend Lease debt.
@@nickdanger3802 are you a robot, or did you respond to the wrong person? 😂
Edit:
alright, you’ve got me to bite. All of what you’ve written is completely irrelevant. It’s some sort of cherry picked flag waving muppet logic from the land of Trumpism’s accounting and economics ->You’re attempting to politicize something for no reason.
1. It doesn’t matter what is gifted, as materials and labour costs something. Labour can be allocated to different projects that take more or less time. The same goes with fuel, and raw building materials. If a Mossie takes 2000 man hours to build versus a P-38 that takes 5000 man hours to build, the production would be better allocated to the Mossie given similar statistical trades versus enemy tonnage.
2. Pilot training is also relevant because it 1 Lancaster requires a single pilot, and if 3 Mossies were to carry the same payload, it accounts for 3 pilots.
@@drewski5730 How is cost benefit to be determined without including virtually free avgas and engines for Mossie ?
USA spent almost 3 times as much as Britain, so cost was not nearly as significant for the USA.
Rob Ott
@@nickdanger3802 you really need to chill out dude. 😂
love your detailed videos
Really enjoyed this video Greg. Please keep them coming. Glad to comment for... youtube stuff.
The P38 has the disadvantage of being designed before the war had begun. While a year or so may not seem like much in the late 1930s the technology was developing very quickly. There are not many aircraft designed before the war began that were still (with upgrades) very capable by the end of war.
In contrast the mossie is impressive, at least to me, because it was effective with a minimal need for strategic material.
Kelly Johnson and Geoffrey de Havilland are both remarkable aircraft designers but in such different ways. Johnson's designs seem to push the proverbial envelope of what is possible while de Havilland designs aircraft from what might be considered yesterday's technology yet manages to produce a remarkable aircraft. If excellent aircraft design was a coin they would be on opposite sides of that coin.
Wartime.
UK designers - needs must.
US designers, at that time - the pressure was not the same.
Your comment at the end about how interesting it is that two so different planes had such similar performance is even more interesting when you consider that the Germans weren’t able to get their twin engine fighter anywhere close.
Another reason for the use of wood in the mosquito was that many of the DH staff had, prewar, been Piano makers and were expert carpenters.
The choice of a wooden construction was a development from the early 1930s DH 99 racing aircraft. The strategic considerations arose later on but it was certainly a wonderful selling point given the wartime pressure on the supply of all sorts of metals.
Thought provoking Greg, esp as both aircraft has a feared reputation amongst their enemies. Thank you
Great video Greg. Well researched. I would love to see you evaluate the A-26 invader someday.
Fascinating video! I look forward to hearing about your other thoughts on this comparison and the special equipment.
Another great video Greg, thanks so much for sharing. You have probably read it but if not, Sir Stanley Hookers autobiography "Not much of an Engineer" goes into quite a lot of detail on the development of supercharger impellers at Rolls Royce, which, as an applied mathematician, he was able to contribute to quite significantly. These impeller designs are probably why the Merlin 21 did so well with just a single stage blower. If you dont have the book let me know and I'll send you my copy as its well worth a read 🙂
Thanks, I have read it.
I am so pleased that you always go for specific contemporaneous marks. Also that you discuss relationship to doctrine. At what point does logistical train, specific equipment devision and crew factors negate a slight advantage. Quickly I guess.
Greg, you've nailed it as usual! But there's one statistic you didn't cover and if we were discussing these two planes in this day and age, it would come up immediately. Both have comparable performance, both can undertake a variety of missions, so the bottom line is - what is the comparable cost? I understand reliable costings between the two might be hard to come by but surely it's a factor in how many were built and what use they were put to? Looking forward to further episodes!
Awesome video Greg! Looking forward to the follow up videos.
I’ve been looking forward to another Mosquito video, and it did not disappoint (no surprise there). And I’m sure the next one will be just as good.
I’m guessing the special equipment you mentioned is Oboe, but I’ve been wrong before. Quite an interesting piece of kit.
Incidentally, if you find yourself near London and haven’t been to the de Havilland Aircraft Museum, I highly recommend it. Even if they only had the prototype Mosquito it would be worth a trip.
When did H2S come into use?
Not on the FB6 though.
Gee was made available and was fitted to 8th AF pathfinders. The Generals didn't understand it. It could easily have allowed the U.S. heavy bombers to have super accurately bombed parallel to the D-Day targets behind the beaches. Thousands (of good guys) could have been saved.
These aircraft converged on surprisingly similar performance from very different starting points. The Lightning was conceived as a high-altitude interceptor and acquired the ability to carry bombs almost incidentally as a response to the needs of the theatres in which it operated. The Mosquito was conceived as a high-speed unarmed night-time bomber and became a night-fighter as a better Beaufighter. That gave it guns, which led to the fighter-bomber role but the guns were more for the air-to-ground part of that. It was never planned as a daytime fighter and so far as I am aware was never used operationally in that role.
Wooden construction also strategically smart. The UK had a large furniture industry and skilled workforce who could be converted to aircraft production.
No home grown Balsa wood.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935Yeah, Canda helped a hell of a lot there.
@@markmaher4548 No balsa in Canada, either. It grows in South America.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 the balsa wood came from Ecuador. Again strategically smart - the British could buy it and use it because they had control of the world's oceans. Unlike Germany who had no supply of balsa because of the British/Canadian/American naval blockade.
Once again, flush riveted to content by a great imitation of the inflection and tone produced by every science teacher in my high school.
Very impressive comparison video. I look forward to the follow up. You must know that you've done a thorough job when the only thing that I'd say is that I'd pronounce it as 'mozzie' (soft zeds) rather than 'mossy'. And the 'zed' probably gives away where I'm from. It's amazing how close these totally different planes ended up. Thanks for the video
I Think Greg is not as stupid as some take him for. I think he deliberately mispronounces non US words to provoke comments and keep the algorithm numbers up. It's certainly been very successful to date, so my suggestion is that by all means comment on his pronunciation to help his algorithm, but don't take his mispronunciations personally!
I'm glad Greg is back. Time has...flown... when i go back to the early vids.
Nice content as usual. Me 410 Hornisse also looks interesting
Thanks for including the weight in metric, very good.
Outstanding video and presentation
Absolutely reignited my love for aviation
Thank you so much, I really appreciate that.
It seems that, at least until late in the war, the biggest problem with both of these planes is there weren’t enough of them. I get the impression that neither of these planes was particularly easy to mass produce. Greg, do you have any opinion on which plane wins the “producibility” category?
Hey Greg. Another good video. I always figured the P38 was pretty comparable to the Mossie, and its pretty clear the Mossie wasn't an ultimate weapon and couldn't just be sent out to do just any mission, and it had to be used in the most advantageous methods possible in order to have its record for low loss rates. Night fighting and high speed bombing missions just aren't that risky compared to acheiving air superiority.
I was wondering, have you ever considered doing a video on "super prop" bombers? The Lincoln comes to mind first, but I am sure there's others. There's also interesting things that just never got the momentum behind them due to the war coming to a close. Like the Do335. I always enjoy your videos on such aircraft.
Very interesting. I had always thought of the Mossie as significantly larger than the P-38. Is there a place where there is a comparison of the end-of-war versions?
Thank you.
My favourite part of this video was your accent saying Mossie 😊
Another great video Greg
One weird drawback of most P38s is they had to change the counter rotation of the props so that both turned the "wrong way" in that torque worsened rather than reduced the yaw in an engine out. This was because if they counter rotated the "right way" there was buffeting that unsettled gun stability. Bad human factor technically called "2 critical engines". P.S. A great read is the diary of a survivor of the Yamamoto shoot down by p38s. Admiral Ugaki was in an accompanying airplane and tells what it was like having bullets shredding thru the cabin and the looney behavior of some surviving occupants.
Very interesting comment, thanks for making it.
I'll need to talk about the whole Critical engine thing, but it's much more complicated than that.
Surely it doesn't matter for torque specifically if the props are counter rotating one way or another? There are aerodynamic considerations but opposing vectors cancel no matter which one is +ve and which is -ve, the buffeting is believable though, even on a smaller scale I've observed this with such setups.
They (P38) also suffered from compression problems as did the P47, thye stopped them from high level diving attacks on to bomber streams because they would go beyond there fighting max speed (I think was about .72 the speed of sound) and on occaision would be seen to dive into the ground, problem was identified at Farnborough, and thats why most were changed to low level work or moved to thew Pacific as fighting was at lower levels.
@@xiphosura413 I said it is when an engine conks out.
Ok, Greg, let's hear all of it all.
Very good video, no bias, which is great 👍.
My Grand dad was a British mechanic and engineer during world war 2. He worked on many allied aircraft, including the P38. He also worked on German aircraft as part of reverse engineering.
One aircraft he was very fond of was the P38. He always said it was a great aircraft. I personally think there is way too much comparisons between the P38 and Mosquito, as for at least from my perspective they were very different animals with a very big difference, which should never be omitted when comparing these 2 different aircraft. That is the mosquito was designed to have a 2 man crew. This aspect alone separates these 2 aircraft quite radically, as it would even for modern fighters.
Please I beg that this aspect to stop being overlooked, almost as if its not an aspect to consider.
Thank you for your video Greg
It served much the same purpose regardless of crew
But, there are two man P-38s.
@@TheKephe used the word "designed", very different from the word "used".
Imagine a P51 designed for a two man crew, rather a pointless exercise.
@@davewolfy2906 so I guess the F82 doesn’t exist then.
@@TheKepso thats the reason why the Americans went to so much trouble to design 2 seat versions of the P38?
Ah - two of my all time favorites - dealt with by the variant wizard 👍👍👌👌🍻
Very cool as always, thanks Greg
Extremely interesting and a very balanced assessment of the two aircraft.
Went to the SAC museum. A comparison video could be made for the B25 and the A26. They had both and it’s amazing how different those can be while also being similar looking…
Do you mean A-26 Invader vs. B-25 Mitchell? It's not close the Invader was a much more modern and advanced airplane.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles I think he means the Invader & the Martin Marauder.
The Douglas A-26 Invader (designated B-26 between 1948 and 1965), nothing confusing there😊
Might as well include the A20 havoc in that one
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles yes. When you stand next to both of them, it is not entirely obvious how different their performance and roles are. I didn’t mean they have similar roles, but similar wingspan, height, length, number engines, ….
Often I’ll see planes in flight sims or alone in photos and it’s difficult to get any sense of actual size. Until I saw an Avenger in person, I didn’t realize it was so much larger than a wildcat. The F4 phantom vs any of the contemporary MiGs are another example where the sizes are way different.
I was surprised to see how similar the sizes of the A26 and B25 were given just how different they are. I guess that was how I should have worded my original comment.
As per usual a really good presentation. The only comment that I have is regarding the speed comparisons. I am a Mosquito man, it is my favorite aircraft. I do not Harbour a lot of admiration for the lightning. The Mosquito came primarily in two variants, the "B" bomber and the "FB" fighter bomber. The FB was subject to Fighter Commands rules, which stated that the the front windscreen had to be bird strike proof. As a result the windscreen was flat and approximately 6 inches thick. The loss of aerodynamic efficiency due to this flatness and extra weight, compared to the bombers V shaped windscreen would have slowed the Mosquito even more.
Concerning the Mosquito's wooden construction, It really didn't bear much resemblance to earlier conventional wooden aircraft; it was more a precursor to modern composite construction methods and even composite materials to a degree. The designers at DeHavilland were using wood in ways that were pretty innovative and they were able to get very good performance as a result.
Yes, de Havilland was very good at making airplanes out of wood. Maybe the best.
1927 Lockheed Vega The fuselage was built from sheets of plywood, skinned over wooden ribs. Using a large concrete mold, a single half of the fuselage shell was laminated in sections with glue between each layer and then a rubber bladder was lowered into the mold and inflated with air to compress the lamination into shape against the inside of the mold. The two fuselage halves were then nailed and glued over a separately constructed rib framework.
@@nickdanger3802 That's arguably more of a semi-monocoque design with all the internal framing Lockheed used. The Mosquito relies much more on the laminated fuselage to bear the loads. Anyway, boat-builders were using a very similar construction technique before it was used in aircraft, so there's that too.
@@nickdanger3802I seem to recall the WW1 Albatross fighter was built using a similar method, so not an untested idea? And apparently in Canada the concrete molding technique was also used for the Mossie?
Love your videos, Greg.
Even though I’m just a Challenger 300/600 mechanic, I greatly enjoy the super nitty gritty details of your videos. ESPECIALLY when it comes to the P-38, as may be evident by my profile picture, which is a picture I took in 2014 at an air show in Offutt, Nebraska!
It would be interesting to see some graphs about the speed of the mosquito in its reconnaissance form, as I hear stories of the mossy outpacing enemy fighters but whenever I look at speed graphs that doesn’t seem to be the case.
The Mosquito's main defence was running for the nearest cloud cover!!
You haven’t looked at the high altitude lightened PR Mosquito with two stage, intercooled and two speed supercharger engines with their maximum boost increased to benefit from 130 and 150 octane fuel. Only the Me 262 had a chance of catching them.
You have to look at high altitude cruise speed.
Even if the 109K was faster, for example. It was not going to climb to the same altitude, then catch a Mosquito.
Even if the fighter could exceed its speed, they climbed at a far lower speed, around 1/3 of their maximum speed. They also ran out of gas quickly at full power.
The same principles of trigonometry and performance envelops were demonstrated in the Mach-3.3 SR-71 v 4,000+ mach-4 missiles.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935if I'm not mistaken, the 262 first combat was against one of these.
@@samuelgordino problem with that claim is there's no RAF loss corresponding to it on the day, which as with all air to air kills makes it a bit suspicious. Not checked the records but heard this second hand.
Is there a way to compare the COSTs of the two planes? (I read somewhere the P-38 design was set up for manufacture in response to an initial request for 49 interceptors, and wasn't ever optimized for production of the multi-thousands eventually produced.)
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever looked at a photo of the Mosquito with someone beside it before, it never really occurred to me how big it looks.
Build a scale model and compare it then, you are quite correct
Seems to be a very good comparison. A major set of factors omitted though are those of produceability. In a UK of the time, not using scarce aluminium, would have allowed many more units to be produced, whilst not impacting other production. The fact that other skill sets and factories were employed was to me a real and major advantage. Sharing the workload around the country, using nonstrategic materials was a master stroke.
I see the situation as a plane conceived as a fast bomber that became an excellent fighter bomber versus a one conceived as a fast fighter that became excellent fighter bomber.
Its always great to see a new video from Greg!
Thanks for the video.
Thank you very much for "boring me with all the numbers"! Very informative deep dive.
Cheers Greg .. You Make a Valid Point… These planes were designed on different planets… in Example Frank Whittle was much happier in America than England … he couldn’t believe the difference in the attitudes of American government and aircraft industry
In some ways the UK was fighting a different war, for the first half they were wary of invasion or losing the convoy battles.
This makes for different attitudes
The (private) ‘public’ school a British officer’s parents paid for determines the top promotion path in the British Armed Forces. There is even bonus pay to cover the next generation’s public school fees. Sergeants don’t get that.
@@davewolfy2906 In 1934 neither the Air Ministry nor the RAF thought Whittle's patent worth the £5 it would cost to renew it.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 ORs don't get preferential rates to send their sprogs to boarding school?
@@nickdanger3802 in 1934 front line aircraft were biplanes.
A jet engine would be like a warp drive
Greg, continued solid work. A man of details, you probably put tools up after you use them. That was meant as a compliment.
How is the other German more advanced twin engines plane like Ju188, Do335 and Me410. Do they have a chance against P-38G and Mosquito in flying speed?
All of this talk about cooling (or lack thereof) on the P-38 made me think back to Smoky Yunick’s “Adiabatic”, or hot vapor, engines of the 1980s and 1990s. Smokey’s main premise was, we paid for all this heat so we ought to use it. I would love it if Greg made a video discussing Yunick’s engines.
Mosquito was probably a better night fighter. The P38 was designed as a single seat, and the double seat version to accommodate the radar operator looks horrible (and very uncomfortable).
Another cracking video Greg. Thank you.
Great videos watch them sometimes with my Dad who is an Engineer . If-the Mosquito had been built of Aluminium it might been lighter?
But the wood it needed took a lot of time to prepare. It took a lot of time to repair them at Hatfield.
I wonder if it had been if DH had built it. If they had little to no experience building all-metal aircraft, an early attempt would likely be heavier than absolutely needed. But who knows?
Another great episode.
Really appreciate the work you put into these...
Night fighter Ace Bob Braham relates how on a low level intruder mission in a Mosquito he overhauled and shot down an FW 190, albeit carrying a "long range underslung fuel tank." During the preceding manoeverings he opened the engine cooling flaps to outturn the 190.
"Scramble!"
Lucky. The Mosquito was not a day fighter by any means.
@@richardnixon4062 In the D-Day deception _Amiens Prison Bombing Raid_ a Mosquito shot down a 190. It was then cornered and shot down by two 190s.
@@richardnixon4062 I think many cases were due to overconfidence on the part of the single engined fighter's pilot. If the Mosquito got a chance to hit you, all those guns would make the outcome fairly certain.
Excellent video. Many thanks for a well thoughtout and presented comparison.
Thumbs up now, will watch later.
Did the Mosquito have counter-rotating props like the P38? Wouldn't that help the P38 to be a bit more agile by avoiding the gyroscopic effects?
The Mosquito did not have counter rotating props. The P-38 did, which does help it.