I'm not sure about what to make the next planes with but I think I'd start with making sure your audio is good before we tackle the plane manufacturing issues....
Geoffrey was the cousin of Hollywood actress Olivia De Havilland. His Mosquito is regarded as the worlds first multi-role aircraft, recon, bomber, fighter-bomber, day fighter, night fighter, night intruder, ground attack. They stuck 8 rocket rails under the wings for 60lb rocket projectiles, and absolutely wreaked German coastal shipping. They also stuck a Molins 6 pounder anti-tank gun in it, called it the Tsetse Fly,, and sent it out hunting U-Boats, 1 confirmed sinking, and several maybes. The skeleton was mostly Spruce and Larch, with a plywood skin.
If I remember correctly fuselage was monococque structure shaped over a large positive mold. Plywood-balsa-plywood sandwich. Very advanced stuff to keep it light yet strong. And I think only modern composites would beat it in performance.
The Tsetse version shot down a JU88 fighter with its Molins gun, which was a variant of the 57mm, 6 pounder anti tank gun. It is reputed to have hit the Junkers with rounds. One blew clean through a wing. The second hit the back of the engine on that wing and tore it off, downing the aircraft.
The Mosquito was one of the first planes to fly the very dangerous "Intruder" missions. They would sneak out, circle an enemy airfield, and wait for enemy night fighters to land or take off. Then they'd swoop in, try to shoot down as many of them as they could, and get back out again.
My grandfather was RAF groundcrew. He said the Mosquitos nearly always came back. I didn't need to ask him about the other bombers, it was in his look.
From what I was able to find via google. By the end of world war 2 the mosquito had a loss rate of roughly 0.63% compared to the Lancaster bomber with around 2.13%. The mosquito also had an unconfirmed kill count of approximately 600 enemy planes and roughly 600 unpiloted V1 rockets.
@@BerserkerLuke The kill count by the British was often under declared as every kill needed verification from other crews. No verification, no kill, only a provisional kill not credited.
Another fun fact about the Mosquito: they put a 57mm anti-tank gun in a few of them for gun-based anti-shipping purposes. They also prototyped a massive 94mm gun in one after the war but that one didn't go anywhere aside from a couple of successful test flights and weapons tests.
The mosquitos were made of a combination of Alaskan Spruce, English Ash, Canadian Birch, Douglas Fir, Black Walnut, Paper Birch, Yellow Birch, and Ecuadorian balsa.
Yes, De Havilland developed an extremely strong plywood by laying each ply at 45 degrees to its neighbours, rather than the stanard 90 degrees.@@jmdesertadventures803
In WWI, DeHavalamd built the only bomber that was its own fighter escort, the DH-4. When given Liberty Engines, these aircraft were faster than the DR3 and as maneuverable as most fighters of their day even with a load of bombs. Of course the did a repeat in WWII with the DH-98.
The German Moskito also had an issue with the adhesive used, as it caused the panels to de-bond, making it unreliable. Fun fact: Because radar in night fighters was Top Secret the British Government started the myth that carrots help you see in the dark. This was done to explain why night fighter pilots like “Cat’s eyes” Cunningham were so successful, without breaking secrecy.
Well that's because the glue that worked was only made in one factory and the formula for that glue was kept in that same factory and well when the Brits got wind(ultra) that the Germans were copying the Mosquito they sent a strike of Mosquitos to burn the glue factory down and the formula went with it. The Germans tried to formulate a new glue and well it was trash and made things worse.
I think the carrots story was actually a deep fake. The Germans did know the British were ahead of them in radar technology. They thought the carrots story planted in the British press was an obvious attempt to conceal their superior radar tech. In fact a lot of their success was due to Bletchley Park and Ultra.
Another unexpected advantage aircraft like Mosquito and Swordfish had was due to their wooden(and canvas when it came to Swordfish) construction, when they took hits from cannon commonly carried by fighter to use vs bombers and AAA rounds from the ground, the cannon and flak rounds would pass straight through the fuselage and wings failing to detonate. So instead of massive chunks being blown off, they'd have holes poked in them and just keep trucking. And as for wood vs radar, I worked fast craft ferries and something we'd sometimes have problems with in the Irish sea were fishing boats, specifically the older ones. We'd be bombing along at 36-38knts and then one of them would just vanish right in our path from the radar. Sure enough, we'd look through the binos to confirm one of the boats just turned her bow onto us and because of it's wooden hull and high bow, our nav radar is being absorbed or deflected away before it can get a clear return from the wheelhouse or machinery.
Fighter planes up until late in the war lacked the range to fully escort bombers. U.S. and British bomber losses were often horrendous. I beleive that statistically, as an individual in the bomber force, you were more likely to be killed or injured than the average infrantryman.
A 2 week life expectancy was not uncommon for bomber crews, especially early in the war when they lacked sufficient planes for the job until the Lancaster, Halifax and sterling arrived.
@@bionicgeekgrrlthe losses were huge . Lancaster crews would cheer when they heard that Sterling's were also taking part in a raid . Except for the Sunderland , l don't think Shorts made a single decent aircraft .
The British could have had a jet fighter in service at the start of the war but for political and social idiocy. Sir Frank whittle who developed the first jet engine in the 1920s, wasn't taken seriously as he was a self taught engineer. At that time no engineering education at university meant the establishment would not take you seriously. They took him so unseriously that they didn't take the opportunity to classify his development under national security powers. His patents were picked up by the Germans who were less pig headed and developed the first jet plane to fly and enter service. The British if they had taken whittle seriously from the start could have had the meteor in service by possibly 1941 as they eventually got the test plane flying in 1940, but funds were hard to come by. We know how things went from there really.
It was initially just birch wood, but switched to a mix of birch and balsa before finally switching to spruce as the war progressed and supply issues took hold. The spruce planes were not as light as the birch and balsa planes, but were cheaper and easier to manufacture.
The Mosquito was made from, mostly, a wooden composite structure. All Mosquitoes used a mixture of balsa, birch and spruce. The fuselage was constructed using two birch ply skins sandwiching a balsa core, Some high strength areas replaced the balsa with spruce.
Not only did it have speed and combat efficiency, it was possibly the best looking airplane ever to go to war. The really crazy version was the tsetse variant where they stuck a 57mm autocannon in the plane and went after u-boats and ships.
Also Geoffrey DeHavilland's son was a test pilot who made the first flight of the Mosquito and the Vampire jet. He was killed shortly afterwards testing another jet.
The main reason the German Moskito failed was that the British bombed the glue factory which was making the specialised glues they needed to stick their plane together. Geoffrey de Havilland eventually financed the development of the Mosquito himself. He was making money on commercial wooden planes, like the Dragon Rapide and diverted some of it on to the Mosquito project. One of the first low-level Mosquito bombing raids was against the Philips radio factory in Eindhoven (Netherlands). Two other spectacular raids were Operation Jericho, when Mosquitos bombed the prison in Amiens the day before a couple of hundred French resistance fighters were going to be executed. They blew a hole in the outer wall and demolished the German guard house and canteen (where the guards were having lunch). Another raid was very late in the war when the Danish resistance asked the British to destroy the Gestapo's records in their building in the middle of Copenhagen. The British succeeded, but some of the bombs fell on a school and killed several children. One of the weirder sets of missions were in 1944-1945 when the OSS (forerunner of the CIA) had developed a very early type of mobile phone. They had operatives on the ground observing the way the Germans were moving units about by night (to avoid Allied reconnaissance plances). Mosquitos would take off with an OSS operative perched on top of the internal fuel tank and the plane would fly slow and low on a prearranged route hoping to pick up transmissions from the operative on the ground. Goering's famous quote about the Mosquito was: "It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminum better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops. After the war is over I’m going to buy a British radio set - then at least I’ll own something that has always worked." It wasn't just one piano factory either. The British had planned wartime production very carefully, so different workshops would construct different parts of the plane, which would be joined together at a central factory.
"They ( the British) have the geniuses, and we have the nincompoops "?? I will tell you who was a nincompoop .....Goering . Commander Winkel Brown , one of the greatest test pilots of all time , had the opportunity to fly all the latest German equipment they captured at the end of the war . The only allied airman to fly the ME 163 Komet , and also ME 262 , the Arado schnell bomber and many others. The British and Americans were totally gobsmacked. " they were years ahead of us " said Brown , clearly , still shaken , decades later.
@@michellebrown4903 they were but not so much in the Engines,, they worked but had a very short life span. Only around 6 or so hours of use on the ME262's.
That attack against Gestapo headquarters was in Copenhagen Denmark and was a bit of a disaster as the building next door that the bombs went off in was a school house, I believe. That wasn't Operation Jericho as the Fat Electrician said but Operation Carthage. Operation Jericho was a low level attack on a French prison that the mosquitoes raided to free a bunch of resistance fighters that were being sent to Germany. One pair of planes knocked a wall down while another flight bombed the guards while at lunch and blew open the cells.
The mission the Fat Electrician talks about in this video where the delayed fuses didn't go off inside the target was the raid on the gestapo HQ in Oslo Norway in 1942. Raiding high profile targets like gestapo HQ's in various occupied countries or nazi propaganda functions became the Mosquito's bread and butter. Most were pretty successful with Operation Carthage being one of the few outliers. The only reason it failed as bad as it did is because one of the planes on the lead wave hit a powerline and slammed into the orphanage. The following waves upon seeing the fires assumed that was the main target and dropped their bombs right were the first plane had crashed triggering a tragic chain of events.
You lost a bit of audio at the start. This might have been done by RUclips itself as a copyright issue. I've seen it done to other videos. In this case the silence corresponded with the old footage at the start.
Mosquito is an excellent name. It stings, and good luck hitting it. A few notes... First of all, Germany was allowed to develop some aviation technology after WW1, limited to gliders, and some 'clearly civilian' airplanes. As with so many things, they just moved military airplane development out of the country temporarily. They also developed dual use airplanes (airliner and bomber... this idea didn't work very well). Much of the development of aviation during the second world war is making practical ideas which developed especially during the 1930s, including jet planes, rocket planes, etc.
No, a mosquito bites, but initially you don't even know you've been bitten! It's in & out without you even realising it was there.. if you hear it, more often than not, it's too late, the damage has been done. It was the perfect name for this brilliant aircraft.
It took quite a while for fighter escorts to be efficient during WWII because Germany is a long way from any British airbase and the fighters didn’t have the range (e.g. during Dunkirk a Spitfire had enough fuel fully loaded to cross the channel and have maybe 20mins of fighting time over Dunkirk before it had to go home). Escorting bombers is exactly what the P-51 was designed for, it was originally built for an RAF request and eventually found its way into becoming the USAAF’s primary fighter.
The Mossie, was built using Balsa, Spruce and other woods sandwiched together. Cheating off Wiki for this the Fuselage : "The oval-section fuselage was a frameless monocoque shell built in two vertically separate halves formed over a mahogany or concrete mould.[nb 11] Pressure was applied with band clamps. Some of the 1/2-3/4" shell sandwich skins comprised 3/32" birch three-ply outers, with 7/16" cores of Ecuadorean. In many generally smaller but vital areas, such as around apertures and attachment zones, stronger timbers, including aircraft-quality spruce, replaced the balsa core. The main areas of the sandwich skin were only 0.55 in (14 mm) thick." The Fat Electrician made it sound like there were long gaps between the start of production and then when they added guns and bombs. The Photo Recon version first operated in September 1941, the Bomber was delivered to units in November 1941. The Night fighter was in service by January 1942. Most of these would have been on the drawing boards at the same time. I understand Mr. Terry thinking no guns was a bad idea, as the B-17 and B-29 are covered in guns, so that has to be the right idea. But the Mossie could carry almost the same load as the B-17 to Berlin, with 1/5th the number of crew, and using only 2 engines not 4. The Cost efficiency of the Mossie was everywhere. The Mossie had a loss rate of
My great grandfather was born in 1939 and is still alive and active today when he talks about the world before and how much has changed its crazy and he always thought everything had been invented already nothing could advance further
The USAAF asked for some mosquitoes under lend lease terms once the veil of secrecy was lifted. Unfortunately it was at the period when production was only just meeting RAF needs, so it was refused. I believe that the USAAF got the aircraft they wanted in 1943. Interestingly, the USAAF only had converted bombers that were able to fulfil the role of night fighter. They needed something to use in the Pacific Theatre. Mosquitoes were unsuitable as the RAF had found that the damp conditions denatured the adhesive and the wood debonded. The British/Australians were using the Beaufighter in the Pacific. This was the metal aircraft that everyone wanted, but the Mossie had pushed it out of Europe. The Beaufighter was only a bit slower than the Mossie, and couldn't carry anywhere near the same payload, but was making its mark as a night fighter. The USAAF got a load of these to use in the Pacific and Mediterranean theatres. They were only replaced by Black Widow night fighters when these became available very late in the war. Mosquitoes and Beaufighters can be seen in some USAAF museums, which baffles most Americans as they were never given much publicity during or after the war.
Lol Nick does have a way with words. I'm also really happy that you are a history teacher. You care about history and that's the only way to genuinely pass it on. My history was a Cuban refugee and cared. You and Nick get to do the same to others and I wholeheartedly respect that.
On the bit about the rapid advancement of aviation technology: My grandfather on my mother's side actually saw one of the Wright Flyer 2's test flights and lived to see jets become commonplace. Apparently he became so fascinated in planes that any time he heard one fly overhead he would immediately stop what he was doing to stare at it. He'd even pull over on the side of the road and get out of his car to watch them.
yep there is a story in youtube of a mossie that flew home with one wing having half missing and one wheel that wouldn't come down and it still flew home and landed safetly. sadly the crew died on the next bombing mission in a different mosquite.
not only did we ration metal we also had metal drives where everyone were encouraged to round up everything metal from your homes and donate it to the government
Unfortunately most of the salvaged metals were found to be very poor quality alloys and totally unsuitable for use in the manufacture of armaments and ammunition. The scrap drives were continued only for their moral raising value of bringing the public together with a single uniting purpose. Everybody was able to make their contribution and be seen doing so. Other materials were also collected such as paper and fabrics which were much easier to reuse or to return to be converted into new paper for use as office supplies or as the necessary material for map making and even the worst scraps of paper could be used to make new toilet paper. Fabrics could be reused to make new fabrics to make uniforms and bedding or bandages or even blackout material and also both paper and fabrics could be combined to make a sound proofing material for use in vehicles or to help deaden sound in other areas where the accuracy of hearing could be vital.
It’s a little crazy that the block buster wasn’t the largest bombs the RAF dropped on Germany they also used the 12000 pound tallboy and the 22000 pound Grand Slam from the Lancaster.
There were also 2,000lb, 8,000lb and 12,000lb high capacity, or blockbuster, bombs. The 8,000lb HC and 12,000lb HC bombs were larger diameter and required the bomb bay doors to be slightly bulged. The 12,000lb HC bomb was, more or less, the same size as Tallboy.
The greatest Australian to ever live, Keith Miller, was a Mosquito pilot. Not only was Miller a Test cricketer who to change the course of a match in a session with either the bat or ball, he was the OG Han Solo: Handsome, swash-buckling rogue of a fighter pilot that effed a princess. In an interview with Michael Parkinson on the pressure of playing Test cricket, Miller responded with a remarkable perspective 'Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse, playing cricket is not.'
The Mosquito is still an apt name for this aircraft. Because the "DeHaviland I smacked you on the nose and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it neener neener boo boo" is too long to put on requisition forms.
The wood they used to make them was balsa, I think I remember hearing somewhere (the same wood they also use for easily breakable prop chairs that are smashed over actors in films)
@@Sorarseyeah they were basically early composite more than they were ply wood due to how they layered different types of woods to get the results they needed for that portion of the plane
DH-98 Mosquito was the granddaddy of ALL multi-role aircraft today, the pilots were called by the Germans the Pirates of the sky, they even fitted a cannon to it to destroy tanks. This experience of flying recce and low level gave the RAF experience to carryout low level attacks even to this day, for example did you know that the RAF Tornado was carrying out attacks during the Gulf War at 80 feet, coming in so low as the anti-aircarft fire did not work, this all came from the DH-98 Mosquito - yes the name is right, bang on, as it harassed and annoyed (trolling) the Germans from first flight to war end.
just for how far britain went with metal for the war, they cut every metal fence they could, and bicycles... they never got around to melting most of them down so chucked them in the ocean
"What would be a better name?" Well you could have raptors, falcons, wildcats...but im betting the mosquito has killed more humans than all of them combined
Both heavy bombers and fighter bombers were used extensively by both sides during WW I. First transatlantic flight in 1919 (Alcock and Brown) was made by a WW I medium bomber (Vickers Vimy). Beginning of WW I aircraft were string and canvas, by the end of the war they were capable of crossing the Atlantic and could carry considerable payloads.
The mosquito as you saw in some of the pictures is a laminate design. The fuselage is basically a wooden tube with the lamination sheets crisscrossed down its length, giving it tremendous strength. The wings are basically also done the same way to Havilland ideas, pre-date carbon fibre and composite materials which are now found in all modern aircraft because when it comes to flying every ounce counts
It is exactly equivalent - for plywood read CFRP, for balsa read PU (or similar) foam. The plywood and the solid wood beams provide the strength, the balsa acts as the spacer and the overall thickness provides the stiffness.
Possibly the handsomest plane of WWII. IIRC, that mission was over the Netherlands. Unfortunately, there was a hospital on the other side of Gestapo HQ, and that was what the bombs hit.
The Brits actually learned from the mishaps in Operation Jericho and later repeated that style of attack in Operation Carthage - the attack on Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Gestapo had shortly before successfully arrested most of the Danish resistance leadership (a huge intelligence scoop for the Nazis). So, the RAF bombed the lower three floors horizontally, to destroy the archive and kill as many Gestapo personnel as possible (before computers, much was simply memorized) - but left the top floor intact, where resistance fighters were being held as human shields... and it worked, archive and Gestapo operatives went up in flames, while about 2/3 of resistance leadership escaped. To this day, you can still see an original propeller blade from one of the shot-down Mosquitos, on the front of that building (still in use) - with the names of the killed air crews. * Tragically, a stricken airplane crashed into a school, causing a second attack wave to bomb the wrong target (they went by the smoke column) ~ killing 116 of which 86 were children, yet no Danes ever blamed them. ** btw. Fat Electrician keeps saying "fighter jets" about 1943 ~ there are no fighter jets in operational use in 1943, he should be saying "fighter planes"
Well they did have a good glue but the factory was bombed(By Mosquitos) so the formula for that glue burned down with it. They made a new glue that was terrible to replace it so their plywood fell apart.
I will tell you one thing that happened between the Battle of Britain and D-Day - My mother, who was about 7 years old was pushed into a ditch by her mother because a Messerschmitt 109 flew along the high street of the south coast town where they lived machine-gunning the people in the street. It was a time of 'nuisance raids' but if you lived in *any* town in southern England they were more like 'sudden death raids' The connection to the past is often forgotten, but I remember my grandmother, and now my mother from little snippets like this...
I vaguely recall reading or hearing somewhere that the tricky take off and landing thing was partly a visibility thing, being both a tail dragger and having a big engine nacelle either side of the cockpit, but also that the control surfaces were just less responsive at really low speeds. I think maybe it was an aeroplane that was at its best when hurtling around the sky going flat out.
Partially, handling problems were mostly attributed to the fact both Merlins spun in the same direction, the torque produced wanted to twist the plane into the ground
My husband's parents built Mosquitos In Australia. They had to modify the glue used after several aircraft disintergrated in mid air due to the glue failing in tropical conditions. The Mosquitos were used by the RAF Pathfinders who traveled ahead of bombing raid to mark the areas to be bombed with coloured flares. The Mosquito could carry the same bomb load as a B17 & due to having a crew of only 2 would have resulted in far fewer casualties from downed aircraft. A truly remarkable multi purpose aircraft.
britain truly made some of the best planes during ww2 like supermarine spitfire hawker huricane avro lancaster dh98 mosquito hawker typhoon even a jetfighter the meteor used to shoot down v1 flying bombs by the end of the war ps there is a movie about this plane from the famous 633 squadron
At the end of the war there was a single seat fighter developed from he Mosqito called the D.H Hornet. It was one of the fastest ever piston engined planes and pilots descibed it as a joy to fly.
If I recall correctly Dehavilland made them out of Balsa wood mostly and brass screws. They were faster then the Spitfires when released. I’m surprised he didn’t talk about the sun hunting version that had an auto loading 6 pounder gun.
The Tetse. Bonkers machine! There's an interview on RUclips with one of the pilots who talks about shooting down a German aircraft with one - said that it knocked the engine clean off the other plane's wing. 6lb of solid shot would do that.
Computers. My grandmother was 103 when she passed 1911 to 2014. Saw the end of wwl. Up to operation enduring freedom Grew up in Pennsylvania. Most people have horses she did 35 years at fisher body GM auto assembly plant putting cars together. Yes to hear her talk was amazing
The mosquito was a beautiful aircraft, not only could it carry a better bomb load than the B17 but it was assisted in its attainment of high speed by not having guns sticking out all over the place, which decreased the carrying capacity of such aircraft not only by adding weight but also by stripping away the streamlining, with turrets and holes in the fuselage breaking up the smooth lines. The mosquito was very adaptable, being a bomber, fighter, recon aircraft and, with the fitting of a heavy gun (the Mosquito Tetse) giving it an anti tank and anti shipping capacity. During the Battle of Britain bombing raids over Europe continued, being a separate part of the strategic picture.
These aircraft were built in Australia ,Canada and UK. Canadian fir was used in the body and wings. Five hundred were made here in Toronto Ontario Canada. There is flying example out in BC Canada A friends father help to assembled them at the plant at Downsview's DH plant. I use to watch them fly over during the 1950's with name of Spartan airways used for mapping in the north gj
The mosquito in the war was used to mark out the areas for bomber command to drop their bombs by flying in low and quick dropping flares and getting out before they could be caught. They also outran the German jet night fighters towards the end of the war
1. Lateral thinking is always useful. It's like the US Navy hiring women and musicians to help break Japanese war codes in the Pacific. 2. In July 1943, the Allies invaded/liberated Sicily and would follow on in mainland Italy a few months later. Early July 1943 was a bad time for the Nazis. First they lose at Kursk and then they have a real second ground front in Europe. 3. The German mosquito wouldn't have worked anymore than the German owl, there are other wooden night fighter. The problem was they lacked a proper adhesive for the wood. They created one that looked really promising. The only problem was that it ate through the wood. Now I don't have a problem with Nazi pilots falling out of the air but the luftwaffa did.
On your 3rd point about the German adhesive for their Moskito. They did actually have a good and proper adhesive but when the Brirish found out they bombed the factory producing it and in the factory they kept the only written formulation for the adhesive. When. The factory was bombed all the stores of adhesive were destroyed along with the written down formulation and the Germans couldn't rework the formulation ti the same effect and their 'new' adhesive ate the wood.
1903 we could fly 30 miles per hour. 1947 we broke the sound barrier. 1967 we reached 4,520 miles per hour. 135 Space shuttle missions. Millions of individuals are on an airplane daily. Aviation truly changed humanity forever.
I would say that the Mosquito wasn't a throwback to the past with its wooden construction but rather a pointer to the future with the modern laminates. It had layers of wood at 90 degrees to each other (plywood mainly) which gave it immense strength ( as long as the glue held). This is pretty much how modern aircraft are built but using carbon fibre instead of wood.
de Havilland were not the first to propose an unarmed bomber. In 1937 George Volkert, the chief designer of Handley Page, wrote a paper "A Memorandum on Bombing Policy and Its Influence on Design" in which he discusses a "new bomber without turrets", outlining an unarmed high speed aircraft and compared it to an aircraft designed to the P.13/36 medium bomber specification (which led to the Manchester/Lancaster and Halifax). So the seeds for such an aircraft were already sewn. The Mosquito came a little later. Much of its construction was stressed skin composite. It had birch plywood skins sandwiching balsa core. Various woods were used for formers and stringers. The Mosquito was built as a private venture, with a few items procured from the government, such as the engines. The design and prototype was done in about 11 months. After seeing the prototype, W4050, fly, the Air Ministry decided to order 50. But the mix of variants in that 50 was changed a few times. There were, at this time, photo reconnaissance, fighter and bomber variants planned. The prototype exists to this day, housed at the de Havilland Museum.
The Mosquito was made of Plywood. The Germans tried to copy it but the allies burned down the factory in Germany that destroyed the glue they needed to make their copy of the Mosquito. The Germans kept the only copy of the formula for the glue there so it burned down with the factory so they couldn't make more of the stuff.
I find it interesting that "total war" is a concept I was taught heavily in school as why we don't do now what we did in WW2; and yet it's not really taught anymore in the same light. I don't know if that's good or bad. On the one hand, what I was taught was not quite, but very close to being completely wrong historically. Civilians were not seen as legitimate targets because the war was total. There are numerous contemporary stories where bombing targets that were too close to civilians or outright were civilian targets were condemned (mostly in Europe), especially if the destroyed area included historical buildings. And even in the documented consideration for the nuclear weapons use at the end of the war the historical and civilian impact was considered as things to avoid as much as possible while still being effective. On the other hand, the current teaching of what it meant, where the economy was almost completely focused on the war, but civilians were still supposed to be kept out of it, is a lot more accurate. Except that it's also used to judge particular actions in a modern lens. Judging the inaccuracy of city bombings of that era against modern "smart" weapons, judging the use of what are now banned or widely reviled weapons before those bans or the conditions that made the weapons reviled, and judging the use of the atomic bombs on Japan based on how society reacted to that use over the next several decades and without paying any attention to the decisionmaking process that went into it.
composite balsa bonded by glue, the engine nacelles & mountings were made from metal but 90% was balsa. somewhere on youtube is a video which has the reports from 3 us companies given masquitoes at behest of Hap Arnold
Watching this video while wearing my Mosquito T-shirt, bought from the DeHavilland Aircraft museum near St Albans in the UK. The prototype Mosquito in the oldest hangar is simply amazing. The plane was designed in the stately home next to the museum and first flown from an airstrip in the adjacent fields. Museum is brilliant.
He did a good job covering this plane but a version of this plane also hunted U-boats with 4 machine guns and a fast firing cannon. They really made sure this plane could do everything.
Woods used in Mosquito are spruce, balsa and birch plywood. German Moskito, Focke Wulf Ta-154, had a big problem. Germans didn't have glue strong enough. In a contrast, British glue, the Aerolite, was very good and is still in use today.
I think he's a bit unfair to Beaverbrook. He was appointed half way through 1940. He had the short turn goal of producing enough fighters to win the Battle of Britain. He made some decisions that sacrificed the long term for the short. The Mosquito was one of those. It used used the same engines as two normal fighters, so short term it might have been the right choice not to go with it during 1940. Once the urgent need for more interceptors had passed then they went with the Mosquito in 1941. The Mosquito was mostly made of 3 ply - two layers of birch sandwiching a layer of balsa. Ash and pine were also used in places. My music teacher in the 70s had flown in Mosquitos.
They weren’t stealth aircraft. When they flew low level, the curvature of the earth shortens the range of detection. When they flew in groups as pathfinders, they got lost in the return of the 800 Lancaster and Sterling bombers behind them. They along with the Bristol Beaufighters were the back bone of the night fighting corps. They also specialized in intruder missions, loitering around enemy airfields waiting for bombers to turn on their landing lights. Just aim between them.
18:10, bet those gestapo jerks browned/yellowed their pants when those planes hole punched their headquarters. Like can you imagine. Your just at your desk or wandering around and blam a new door/window. 300+mph when standing still is very fast, by the time they took to blink the bombs went in and out. And suddenly theres a draft to compliment their lost bowl movements.
What else should we try to make planes out of?
De Havilland Frankie, the new and improved Dogsquito capable of long distance food recon
Pycrete lol it may not have worked for a aircraft carrier it may work with a plane
Used plastics.
I'm not sure about what to make the next planes with but I think I'd start with making sure your audio is good before we tackle the plane manufacturing issues....
A legit paper air plane? But that would be wood technically
because of how annoying this particular plane was to enemies, mosquito fits
And the fact that you don't know it's there until you're already bit a bunch of times.
And delivering horrific payloads when it does.
*points to west Nile virus*
@@KuroChiShikakuand Malaria something that has killed more people than almost any up other parasite / virus over the years
@@KuroChiShikaku don't forget malaria
@@jameswells554 Or Smallpox (ask the Georgians)
the sound cuts out at first but then it comes back btw
I'm pretty sure it's a copyright mute
The audio cut I heard was where there was just music, so he probably did it intentionally to avoid copyright.
Spent too much time messing with my ear buds because of that 😆
@@natethelate4553most likely it does that on a few other reactors videos too
@@Username18981 Yeah I thought mine was on mute I kept messing with it.
The "Mosquito" was perfectly named. What's more annoying than a friggin Mosquito? 😂😂😂
What's more deadly 🤔
they should've had the pilots be all women
cuz only female mosquitoes suck blood, and are thus the biters
It's small, fast, damned near impossible to catch and it will absolutely ruin your day
@@CorvusCorone68 Like the Night Witches?
@@glitchedmatrix55 well thanks to googling that term i learned a bit of aeronautical history, but i was actually going for the animal side of things
Geoffrey was the cousin of Hollywood actress Olivia De Havilland. His Mosquito is regarded as the worlds first multi-role aircraft, recon, bomber, fighter-bomber, day fighter, night fighter, night intruder, ground attack. They stuck 8 rocket rails under the wings for 60lb rocket projectiles, and absolutely wreaked German coastal shipping. They also stuck a Molins 6 pounder anti-tank gun in it, called it the Tsetse Fly,, and sent it out hunting U-Boats, 1 confirmed sinking, and several maybes. The skeleton was mostly Spruce and Larch, with a plywood skin.
A German fighter pilot who knocked down a Mosquito was awarded two kills.
If I remember correctly fuselage was monococque structure shaped over a large positive mold. Plywood-balsa-plywood sandwich. Very advanced stuff to keep it light yet strong. And I think only modern composites would beat it in performance.
The Tsetse version shot down a JU88 fighter with its Molins gun, which was a variant of the 57mm, 6 pounder anti tank gun. It is reputed to have hit the Junkers with rounds. One blew clean through a wing. The second hit the back of the engine on that wing and tore it off, downing the aircraft.
@@ScienceChap
I have read that, the only air to air kill with an anti tank gun.
She is also the cousin of Churchill by marriage. So she had him put a word in to get it built.
Mosquito sounds like the perfect name for this plane. Came, bit ya, and flew away without you even knowing it was there.
And left a larger mark than the size of the plane itself
And killed more people than some larger things.
The Mosquito was one of the first planes to fly the very dangerous "Intruder" missions. They would sneak out, circle an enemy airfield, and wait for enemy night fighters to land or take off. Then they'd swoop in, try to shoot down as many of them as they could, and get back out again.
He literally just said that!
also pathfinder, they would fly in ahead of the bombers at night drop flares to mark the target then fly off as they were incredibly accurate.
My grandfather was RAF groundcrew. He said the Mosquitos nearly always came back. I didn't need to ask him about the other bombers, it was in his look.
From what I was able to find via google. By the end of world war 2 the mosquito had a loss rate of roughly 0.63% compared to the Lancaster bomber with around 2.13%. The mosquito also had an unconfirmed kill count of approximately 600 enemy planes and roughly 600 unpiloted V1 rockets.
WTF that's crazy
@@lip124 Keep in mind that kill counts are often overinflated for a whole host of reasons. I don't doubt it would have been impressive though.
@@BerserkerLuke The kill count by the British was often under declared as every kill needed verification from other crews. No verification, no kill, only a provisional kill not credited.
Another fun fact about the Mosquito: they put a 57mm anti-tank gun in a few of them for gun-based anti-shipping purposes. They also prototyped a massive 94mm gun in one after the war but that one didn't go anywhere aside from a couple of successful test flights and weapons tests.
The mosquitos were made of a combination of Alaskan Spruce, English Ash, Canadian Birch, Douglas Fir, Black Walnut, Paper Birch, Yellow Birch, and Ecuadorian balsa.
Sooo... plywood
@@jmdesertadventures803 Yep, plywood.
@@jmdesertadventures803 undoubtedly
Laminates=strong 👍🏼
Yes, De Havilland developed an extremely strong plywood by laying each ply at 45 degrees to its neighbours, rather than the stanard 90 degrees.@@jmdesertadventures803
Mosquito is the perfect name for it. It's lightweight, fast, agile, hard to hit, and sucks their blood.
Anyone who thinks the mosquito is a weak name has never had to deal with one in their tent on bivouac.
In WWI, DeHavalamd built the only bomber that was its own fighter escort, the DH-4. When given Liberty Engines, these aircraft were faster than the DR3 and as maneuverable as most fighters of their day even with a load of bombs. Of course the did a repeat in WWII with the DH-98.
The German Moskito also had an issue with the adhesive used, as it caused the panels to de-bond, making it unreliable.
Fun fact: Because radar in night fighters was Top Secret the British Government started the myth that carrots help you see in the dark. This was done to explain why night fighter pilots like “Cat’s eyes” Cunningham were so successful, without breaking secrecy.
Well that's because the glue that worked was only made in one factory and the formula for that glue was kept in that same factory and well when the Brits got wind(ultra) that the Germans were copying the Mosquito they sent a strike of Mosquitos to burn the glue factory down and the formula went with it. The Germans tried to formulate a new glue and well it was trash and made things worse.
I think the carrots story was actually a deep fake. The Germans did know the British were ahead of them in radar technology. They thought the carrots story planted in the British press was an obvious attempt to conceal their superior radar tech. In fact a lot of their success was due to Bletchley Park and Ultra.
The Mosquito is the Blackbirds grandfather three times removed 😂
Another unexpected advantage aircraft like Mosquito and Swordfish had was due to their wooden(and canvas when it came to Swordfish) construction, when they took hits from cannon commonly carried by fighter to use vs bombers and AAA rounds from the ground, the cannon and flak rounds would pass straight through the fuselage and wings failing to detonate. So instead of massive chunks being blown off, they'd have holes poked in them and just keep trucking.
And as for wood vs radar, I worked fast craft ferries and something we'd sometimes have problems with in the Irish sea were fishing boats, specifically the older ones. We'd be bombing along at 36-38knts and then one of them would just vanish right in our path from the radar. Sure enough, we'd look through the binos to confirm one of the boats just turned her bow onto us and because of it's wooden hull and high bow, our nav radar is being absorbed or deflected away before it can get a clear return from the wheelhouse or machinery.
Also, anyone with a handsaw and wood glue could repair it whereas Hurricane needed a metalworker's machine shop.
Fighter planes up until late in the war lacked the range to fully escort bombers. U.S. and British bomber losses were often horrendous. I beleive that statistically, as an individual in the bomber force, you were more likely to be killed or injured than the average infrantryman.
A 2 week life expectancy was not uncommon for bomber crews, especially early in the war when they lacked sufficient planes for the job until the Lancaster, Halifax and sterling arrived.
@@bionicgeekgrrlthe losses were huge . Lancaster crews would cheer when they heard that Sterling's were also taking part in a raid . Except for the Sunderland , l don't think Shorts made a single decent aircraft .
That was a major plus for Mossies - extremely low crew losses, as raymurray3401 points out.
That low range is part of the reason for the p-38. It is way longer range than any of its contemporary us fighters.
The British could have had a jet fighter in service at the start of the war but for political and social idiocy. Sir Frank whittle who developed the first jet engine in the 1920s, wasn't taken seriously as he was a self taught engineer. At that time no engineering education at university meant the establishment would not take you seriously. They took him so unseriously that they didn't take the opportunity to classify his development under national security powers. His patents were picked up by the Germans who were less pig headed and developed the first jet plane to fly and enter service.
The British if they had taken whittle seriously from the start could have had the meteor in service by possibly 1941 as they eventually got the test plane flying in 1940, but funds were hard to come by. We know how things went from there really.
It was initially just birch wood, but switched to a mix of birch and balsa before finally switching to spruce as the war progressed and supply issues took hold. The spruce planes were not as light as the birch and balsa planes, but were cheaper and easier to manufacture.
Huh, with Brittains love of the Yew longbow, I wonder why they didn't use Yew? Was it to heavy, even given its benefit of strength and flexibility?
The Mosquito was made from, mostly, a wooden composite structure.
All Mosquitoes used a mixture of balsa, birch and spruce.
The fuselage was constructed using two birch ply skins sandwiching a balsa core, Some high strength areas replaced the balsa with spruce.
Not only did it have speed and combat efficiency, it was possibly the best looking airplane ever to go to war. The really crazy version was the tsetse variant where they stuck a 57mm autocannon in the plane and went after u-boats and ships.
"everyone lived happily ever after"
Except Herman Göring, he was sad and did himself in.
Also Geoffrey DeHavilland's son was a test pilot who made the first flight of the Mosquito and the Vampire jet. He was killed shortly afterwards testing another jet.
The main reason the German Moskito failed was that the British bombed the glue factory which was making the specialised glues they needed to stick their plane together.
Geoffrey de Havilland eventually financed the development of the Mosquito himself. He was making money on commercial wooden planes, like the Dragon Rapide and diverted some of it on to the Mosquito project.
One of the first low-level Mosquito bombing raids was against the Philips radio factory in Eindhoven (Netherlands). Two other spectacular raids were Operation Jericho, when Mosquitos bombed the prison in Amiens the day before a couple of hundred French resistance fighters were going to be executed. They blew a hole in the outer wall and demolished the German guard house and canteen (where the guards were having lunch). Another raid was very late in the war when the Danish resistance asked the British to destroy the Gestapo's records in their building in the middle of Copenhagen. The British succeeded, but some of the bombs fell on a school and killed several children.
One of the weirder sets of missions were in 1944-1945 when the OSS (forerunner of the CIA) had developed a very early type of mobile phone. They had operatives on the ground observing the way the Germans were moving units about by night (to avoid Allied reconnaissance plances). Mosquitos would take off with an OSS operative perched on top of the internal fuel tank and the plane would fly slow and low on a prearranged route hoping to pick up transmissions from the operative on the ground.
Goering's famous quote about the Mosquito was:
"It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminum better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops. After the war is over I’m going to buy a British radio set - then at least I’ll own something that has always worked."
It wasn't just one piano factory either. The British had planned wartime production very carefully, so different workshops would construct different parts of the plane, which would be joined together at a central factory.
"They ( the British) have the geniuses, and we have the nincompoops "?? I will tell you who was a nincompoop .....Goering .
Commander Winkel Brown , one of the greatest test pilots of all time , had the opportunity to fly all the latest German equipment they captured at the end of the war . The only allied airman to fly the ME 163 Komet , and also ME 262 , the Arado schnell bomber and many others. The British and Americans were totally gobsmacked. " they were years ahead of us " said Brown , clearly , still shaken , decades later.
In fairness to Goering, he made this remark quite a while before the German jets had been produced. @@michellebrown4903
@@michellebrown4903 they were but not so much in the Engines,, they worked but had a very short life span. Only around 6 or so hours of use on the ME262's.
That attack against Gestapo headquarters was in Copenhagen Denmark and was a bit of a disaster as the building next door that the bombs went off in was a school house, I believe. That wasn't Operation Jericho as the Fat Electrician said but Operation Carthage. Operation Jericho was a low level attack on a French prison that the mosquitoes raided to free a bunch of resistance fighters that were being sent to Germany. One pair of planes knocked a wall down while another flight bombed the guards while at lunch and blew open the cells.
The mission the Fat Electrician talks about in this video where the delayed fuses didn't go off inside the target was the raid on the gestapo HQ in Oslo Norway in 1942.
Raiding high profile targets like gestapo HQ's in various occupied countries or nazi propaganda functions became the Mosquito's bread and butter.
Most were pretty successful with Operation Carthage being one of the few outliers. The only reason it failed as bad as it did is because one of the planes on the lead wave hit a powerline and slammed into the orphanage. The following waves upon seeing the fires assumed that was the main target and dropped their bombs right were the first plane had crashed triggering a tragic chain of events.
@@renegadeleader1Not the orphanage! 😢
Crazy that the fast plane in the world was disregarded because it had a wooden airframe.
You lost a bit of audio at the start. This might have been done by RUclips itself as a copyright issue. I've seen it done to other videos. In this case the silence corresponded with the old footage at the start.
Heavier bombload than a B17.
For those wondering gestapo hq in ww2 was in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse which was around 770 miles away from Britainz
Operation"Jericho "did not go to Berlin, it blew out the walls of a prison in Amiens in German occupied France
Mosquito is an excellent name. It stings, and good luck hitting it.
A few notes...
First of all, Germany was allowed to develop some aviation technology after WW1, limited to gliders, and some 'clearly civilian' airplanes. As with so many things, they just moved military airplane development out of the country temporarily. They also developed dual use airplanes (airliner and bomber... this idea didn't work very well).
Much of the development of aviation during the second world war is making practical ideas which developed especially during the 1930s, including jet planes, rocket planes, etc.
I would've named it the badger, mustelidae don't care
No, a mosquito bites, but initially you don't even know you've been bitten! It's in & out without you even realising it was there.. if you hear it, more often than not, it's too late, the damage has been done. It was the perfect name for this brilliant aircraft.
I missed the "acoustic SR-71" bit when I watched the original video. That's a good one. 😂
The Mosquito is the deadliest thing on the planet. It is a great name for a bomber.
You're referring to diseases like malaria? Yeah. Mosquitoes are both deadly and annoying. Good name for this aircraft.
It took quite a while for fighter escorts to be efficient during WWII because Germany is a long way from any British airbase and the fighters didn’t have the range (e.g. during Dunkirk a Spitfire had enough fuel fully loaded to cross the channel and have maybe 20mins of fighting time over Dunkirk before it had to go home). Escorting bombers is exactly what the P-51 was designed for, it was originally built for an RAF request and eventually found its way into becoming the USAAF’s primary fighter.
It took a British engine to make the P-51 an excellent fighter.
The Mossie, was built using Balsa, Spruce and other woods sandwiched together. Cheating off Wiki for this the Fuselage :
"The oval-section fuselage was a frameless monocoque shell built in two vertically separate halves formed over a mahogany or concrete mould.[nb 11] Pressure was applied with band clamps. Some of the 1/2-3/4" shell sandwich skins comprised 3/32" birch three-ply outers, with 7/16" cores of Ecuadorean. In many generally smaller but vital areas, such as around apertures and attachment zones, stronger timbers, including aircraft-quality spruce, replaced the balsa core. The main areas of the sandwich skin were only 0.55 in (14 mm) thick."
The Fat Electrician made it sound like there were long gaps between the start of production and then when they added guns and bombs. The Photo Recon version first operated in September 1941, the Bomber was delivered to units in November 1941. The Night fighter was in service by January 1942. Most of these would have been on the drawing boards at the same time.
I understand Mr. Terry thinking no guns was a bad idea, as the B-17 and B-29 are covered in guns, so that has to be the right idea. But the Mossie could carry almost the same load as the B-17 to Berlin, with 1/5th the number of crew, and using only 2 engines not 4. The Cost efficiency of the Mossie was everywhere. The Mossie had a loss rate of
My great grandfather was born in 1939 and is still alive and active today when he talks about the world before and how much has changed its crazy and he always thought everything had been invented already nothing could advance further
The USAAF asked for some mosquitoes under lend lease terms once the veil of secrecy was lifted. Unfortunately it was at the period when production was only just meeting RAF needs, so it was refused. I believe that the USAAF got the aircraft they wanted in 1943.
Interestingly, the USAAF only had converted bombers that were able to fulfil the role of night fighter. They needed something to use in the Pacific Theatre. Mosquitoes were unsuitable as the RAF had found that the damp conditions denatured the adhesive and the wood debonded.
The British/Australians were using the Beaufighter in the Pacific. This was the metal aircraft that everyone wanted, but the Mossie had pushed it out of Europe. The Beaufighter was only a bit slower than the Mossie, and couldn't carry anywhere near the same payload, but was making its mark as a night fighter. The USAAF got a load of these to use in the Pacific and Mediterranean theatres.
They were only replaced by Black Widow night fighters when these became available very late in the war.
Mosquitoes and Beaufighters can be seen in some USAAF museums, which baffles most Americans as they were never given much publicity during or after the war.
Lol Nick does have a way with words. I'm also really happy that you are a history teacher. You care about history and that's the only way to genuinely pass it on. My history was a Cuban refugee and cared. You and Nick get to do the same to others and I wholeheartedly respect that.
On the bit about the rapid advancement of aviation technology: My grandfather on my mother's side actually saw one of the Wright Flyer 2's test flights and lived to see jets become commonplace. Apparently he became so fascinated in planes that any time he heard one fly overhead he would immediately stop what he was doing to stare at it. He'd even pull over on the side of the road and get out of his car to watch them.
My favourite WWII aircraft. She could do it all, beautiful thing
from what i heard, the DH-98's can take a beating and still continue flying despite being shot
They were far more durable than one would think when the concept of a wooden airplane is first mentioned.
yep there is a story in youtube of a mossie that flew home with one wing having half missing and one wheel that wouldn't come down and it still flew home and landed safetly. sadly the crew died on the next bombing mission in a different mosquite.
@@gregorturner4753 there's also story's of mossie would fly so low that on most missions that they had to dig branches out of the radiator ducks
The people who made the plane were furniture builders
You have just described my late Grandmother . Born 1890 and died 1980.
Mosquito is an apt name. It is light, nimble, fatal, pretty much impossible to eradicate and most importantly extremely annoying.
DeHavilland also had a theme of flying insect names, with the moth, Gypsy Moth, etc.
not only did we ration metal we also had metal drives where everyone were encouraged to round up everything metal from your homes and donate it to the government
Unfortunately most of the salvaged metals were found to be very poor quality alloys and totally unsuitable for use in the manufacture of armaments and ammunition. The scrap drives were continued only for their moral raising value of bringing the public together with a single uniting purpose. Everybody was able to make their contribution and be seen doing so. Other materials were also collected such as paper and fabrics which were much easier to reuse or to return to be converted into new paper for use as office supplies or as the necessary material for map making and even the worst scraps of paper could be used to make new toilet paper. Fabrics could be reused to make new fabrics to make uniforms and bedding or bandages or even blackout material and also both paper and fabrics could be combined to make a sound proofing material for use in vehicles or to help deaden sound in other areas where the accuracy of hearing could be vital.
ahhh the good ol 1940's where $5000.00 would buy you a new car AND a new home...
It’s a little crazy that the block buster wasn’t the largest bombs the RAF dropped on Germany they also used the 12000 pound tallboy and the 22000 pound Grand Slam from the Lancaster.
There were also 2,000lb, 8,000lb and 12,000lb high capacity, or blockbuster, bombs.
The 8,000lb HC and 12,000lb HC bombs were larger diameter and required the bomb bay doors to be slightly bulged.
The 12,000lb HC bomb was, more or less, the same size as Tallboy.
@MrTerry They used several species of spruce, birch plywood, balsa, mahogany, and wood glue with a steel frame to mold the wood around.
I find it hilarious the germans would dedicate a unit and equipment to hunt down wood.
Especially that late in the war, it shows how much of a problem this particular aircraft and the smart tactical use of it was.
They didn't, there were no Anti Mosquito units in the Luftwaffe, however 2 kills were awarded to any pilot shooting one down
So you... woodn't expect it?
The greatest Australian to ever live, Keith Miller, was a Mosquito pilot. Not only was Miller a Test cricketer who to change the course of a match in a session with either the bat or ball, he was the OG Han Solo: Handsome, swash-buckling rogue of a fighter pilot that effed a princess. In an interview with Michael Parkinson on the pressure of playing Test cricket, Miller responded with a remarkable perspective 'Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse, playing cricket is not.'
The Mosquito is still an apt name for this aircraft.
Because the "DeHaviland I smacked you on the nose and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it neener neener boo boo" is too long to put on requisition forms.
The wood they used to make them was balsa, I think I remember hearing somewhere (the same wood they also use for easily breakable prop chairs that are smashed over actors in films)
They used balsa in a sandwich on some parts of the plane, but there were a number of different woods used throughout the aircraft.
@@Sorarseyeah they were basically early composite more than they were ply wood due to how they layered different types of woods to get the results they needed for that portion of the plane
DH-98 Mosquito was the granddaddy of ALL multi-role aircraft today, the pilots were called by the Germans the Pirates of the sky, they even fitted a cannon to it to destroy tanks. This experience of flying recce and low level gave the RAF experience to carryout low level attacks even to this day, for example did you know that the RAF Tornado was carrying out attacks during the Gulf War at 80 feet, coming in so low as the anti-aircarft fire did not work, this all came from the DH-98 Mosquito - yes the name is right, bang on, as it harassed and annoyed (trolling) the Germans from first flight to war end.
Some Mosquitos were also outfitted with an anti-ship cannon and rockets. Incredibly OP.
DAVENPORT IOWA DAD JOKE of the day
[Q] What is the most distinctive characteristic,of the DOGWOOD tree?
[A] Why,its BARK,of course.
just for how far britain went with metal for the war, they cut every metal fence they could, and bicycles... they never got around to melting most of them down so chucked them in the ocean
9:02 birch and balsa wood
"What would be a better name?"
Well you could have raptors, falcons, wildcats...but im betting the mosquito has killed more humans than all of them combined
The mosquito was the perfect name for it…….
Think about it…….. lol
Mosquito is the perfect name because thats what it dose
Both heavy bombers and fighter bombers were used extensively by both sides during WW I. First transatlantic flight in 1919 (Alcock and Brown) was made by a WW I medium bomber (Vickers Vimy). Beginning of WW I aircraft were string and canvas, by the end of the war they were capable of crossing the Atlantic and could carry considerable payloads.
The mosquito as you saw in some of the pictures is a laminate design. The fuselage is basically a wooden tube with the lamination sheets crisscrossed down its length, giving it tremendous strength. The wings are basically also done the same way to Havilland ideas, pre-date carbon fibre and composite materials which are now found in all modern aircraft because when it comes to flying every ounce counts
It is exactly equivalent - for plywood read CFRP, for balsa read PU (or similar) foam. The plywood and the solid wood beams provide the strength, the balsa acts as the spacer and the overall thickness provides the stiffness.
Possibly the handsomest plane of WWII.
IIRC, that mission was over the Netherlands. Unfortunately, there was a hospital on the
other side of Gestapo HQ, and that was what the bombs hit.
The Brits actually learned from the mishaps in Operation Jericho and later repeated that style of attack in Operation Carthage - the attack on Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Gestapo had shortly before successfully arrested most of the Danish resistance leadership (a huge intelligence scoop for the Nazis). So, the RAF bombed the lower three floors horizontally, to destroy the archive and kill as many Gestapo personnel as possible (before computers, much was simply memorized) - but left the top floor intact, where resistance fighters were being held as human shields... and it worked, archive and Gestapo operatives went up in flames, while about 2/3 of resistance leadership escaped.
To this day, you can still see an original propeller blade from one of the shot-down Mosquitos, on the front of that building (still in use) - with the names of the killed air crews.
* Tragically, a stricken airplane crashed into a school, causing a second attack wave to bomb the wrong target (they went by the smoke column) ~ killing 116 of which 86 were children, yet no Danes ever blamed them.
** btw. Fat Electrician keeps saying "fighter jets" about 1943 ~ there are no fighter jets in operational use in 1943, he should be saying "fighter planes"
made a similar comment, but removed mine. The Danish made a movie about it called 'The Bombardment'
The German Ta-154 "Moskito" had bad glue. During a demonstration flight, the glue failed, causing a crash.
Well they did have a good glue but the factory was bombed(By Mosquitos) so the formula for that glue burned down with it. They made a new glue that was terrible to replace it so their plywood fell apart.
I will tell you one thing that happened between the Battle of Britain and D-Day - My mother, who was about 7 years old was pushed into a ditch by her mother because a Messerschmitt 109 flew along the high street of the south coast town where they lived machine-gunning the people in the street.
It was a time of 'nuisance raids' but if you lived in *any* town in southern England they were more like 'sudden death raids'
The connection to the past is often forgotten, but I remember my grandmother, and now my mother from little snippets like this...
I vaguely recall reading or hearing somewhere that the tricky take off and landing thing was partly a visibility thing, being both a tail dragger and having a big engine nacelle either side of the cockpit, but also that the control surfaces were just less responsive at really low speeds. I think maybe it was an aeroplane that was at its best when hurtling around the sky going flat out.
Partially, handling problems were mostly attributed to the fact both Merlins spun in the same direction, the torque produced wanted to twist the plane into the ground
@@brentdallyn8459 Tragically - RR had already built 'handed' Merlins for a high-altitude interceptor.
My husband's parents built Mosquitos In Australia. They had to modify the glue used after several aircraft disintergrated in mid air due to the glue failing in tropical conditions. The Mosquitos were used by the RAF Pathfinders who traveled ahead of bombing raid to mark the areas to be bombed with coloured flares. The Mosquito could carry the same bomb load as a B17 & due to having a crew of only 2 would have resulted in far fewer casualties from downed aircraft. A truly remarkable multi purpose aircraft.
Goering was a famous heart-throb / romantic with publicised affairs, one with a famous countess (forget who) - in 1920s ish.
He was also known to be gay, or at the very least bi-sexual.
11:39 British fighters all had short ranges at the time, so they couldn't escort bombers. Hence why the British only bombed at night.
britain truly made some of the best planes during ww2 like supermarine spitfire hawker huricane avro lancaster dh98 mosquito hawker typhoon even a jetfighter the meteor used to shoot down v1 flying bombs by the end of the war ps there is a movie about this plane from the famous 633 squadron
At the end of the war there was a single seat fighter developed from he Mosqito called the D.H Hornet. It was one of the fastest ever piston engined planes and pilots descibed it as a joy to fly.
@@neilbuckley1613 It was Winkle Brown's favorite....
If I recall correctly Dehavilland made them out of Balsa wood mostly and brass screws. They were faster then the Spitfires when released. I’m surprised he didn’t talk about the sun hunting version that had an auto loading 6 pounder gun.
The Tetse. Bonkers machine! There's an interview on RUclips with one of the pilots who talks about shooting down a German aircraft with one - said that it knocked the engine clean off the other plane's wing. 6lb of solid shot would do that.
Computers. My grandmother was 103 when she passed 1911 to 2014. Saw the end of wwl. Up to operation enduring freedom
Grew up in Pennsylvania. Most people have horses she did 35 years at fisher body GM auto assembly plant putting cars together. Yes to hear her talk was amazing
Nice reaction. You should let the video keep playing to the end though. He goes on a nice rant about politicians lol
The mosquito was a beautiful aircraft, not only could it carry a better bomb load than the B17 but it was assisted in its attainment of high speed by not having guns sticking out all over the place, which decreased the carrying capacity of such aircraft not only by adding weight but also by stripping away the streamlining, with turrets and holes in the fuselage breaking up the smooth lines.
The mosquito was very adaptable, being a bomber, fighter, recon aircraft and, with the fitting of a heavy gun (the Mosquito Tetse) giving it an anti tank and anti shipping capacity.
During the Battle of Britain bombing raids over Europe continued, being a separate part of the strategic picture.
These aircraft were built in Australia ,Canada and UK. Canadian fir was used in the body and wings. Five hundred were made here in Toronto Ontario Canada. There is flying example out in BC Canada A friends father help to assembled them at the plant at Downsview's DH plant. I use to watch them fly over during the 1950's with name of Spartan airways used for mapping in the north gj
Also heavily used as a pathfinders for the big bomb-planes, marked the target with flares which the bomber squads then dropped their load on.
The mosquito in the war was used to mark out the areas for bomber command to drop their bombs by flying in low and quick dropping flares and getting out before they could be caught. They also outran the German jet night fighters towards the end of the war
1. Lateral thinking is always useful. It's like the US Navy hiring women and musicians to help break Japanese war codes in the Pacific.
2. In July 1943, the Allies invaded/liberated Sicily and would follow on in mainland Italy a few months later. Early July 1943 was a bad time for the Nazis. First they lose at Kursk and then they have a real second ground front in Europe.
3. The German mosquito wouldn't have worked anymore than the German owl, there are other wooden night fighter. The problem was they lacked a proper adhesive for the wood. They created one that looked really promising. The only problem was that it ate through the wood. Now I don't have a problem with Nazi pilots falling out of the air but the luftwaffa did.
...and Navajo radio operators. (o:
On your 3rd point about the German adhesive for their Moskito. They did actually have a good and proper adhesive but when the Brirish found out they bombed the factory producing it and in the factory they kept the only written formulation for the adhesive. When. The factory was bombed all the stores of adhesive were destroyed along with the written down formulation and the Germans couldn't rework the formulation ti the same effect and their 'new' adhesive ate the wood.
1903 we could fly 30 miles per hour.
1947 we broke the sound barrier.
1967 we reached 4,520 miles per hour.
135 Space shuttle missions.
Millions of individuals are on an airplane daily.
Aviation truly changed humanity forever.
I would say that the Mosquito wasn't a throwback to the past with its wooden construction but rather a pointer to the future with the modern laminates. It had layers of wood at 90 degrees to each other (plywood mainly) which gave it immense strength ( as long as the glue held). This is pretty much how modern aircraft are built but using carbon fibre instead of wood.
de Havilland were not the first to propose an unarmed bomber.
In 1937 George Volkert, the chief designer of Handley Page, wrote a paper "A Memorandum on Bombing Policy and Its Influence on Design" in which he discusses a "new bomber without turrets", outlining an unarmed high speed aircraft and compared it to an aircraft designed to the P.13/36 medium bomber specification (which led to the Manchester/Lancaster and Halifax).
So the seeds for such an aircraft were already sewn.
The Mosquito came a little later.
Much of its construction was stressed skin composite. It had birch plywood skins sandwiching balsa core. Various woods were used for formers and stringers.
The Mosquito was built as a private venture, with a few items procured from the government, such as the engines. The design and prototype was done in about 11 months.
After seeing the prototype, W4050, fly, the Air Ministry decided to order 50. But the mix of variants in that 50 was changed a few times. There were, at this time, photo reconnaissance, fighter and bomber variants planned.
The prototype exists to this day, housed at the de Havilland Museum.
Thank you for introducing me to this guy. My favorite history content creator right now.
Oh he's a walking Dad Joke with a history lesson thrown in.
The Mosquito was made of Plywood. The Germans tried to copy it but the allies burned down the factory in Germany that destroyed the glue they needed to make their copy of the Mosquito. The Germans kept the only copy of the formula for the glue there so it burned down with the factory so they couldn't make more of the stuff.
That’s the most german reason for failure ever lol
@@54raceman It doesn't take long to guess what plane the Brits used to hit that glue factory with.
The wood consisted of three layers consisting of Ecuadorian balsa wood and two layers of three-ply birch wood, harvested in the UK, US and Canada.
I find it interesting that "total war" is a concept I was taught heavily in school as why we don't do now what we did in WW2; and yet it's not really taught anymore in the same light. I don't know if that's good or bad.
On the one hand, what I was taught was not quite, but very close to being completely wrong historically. Civilians were not seen as legitimate targets because the war was total. There are numerous contemporary stories where bombing targets that were too close to civilians or outright were civilian targets were condemned (mostly in Europe), especially if the destroyed area included historical buildings. And even in the documented consideration for the nuclear weapons use at the end of the war the historical and civilian impact was considered as things to avoid as much as possible while still being effective.
On the other hand, the current teaching of what it meant, where the economy was almost completely focused on the war, but civilians were still supposed to be kept out of it, is a lot more accurate. Except that it's also used to judge particular actions in a modern lens. Judging the inaccuracy of city bombings of that era against modern "smart" weapons, judging the use of what are now banned or widely reviled weapons before those bans or the conditions that made the weapons reviled, and judging the use of the atomic bombs on Japan based on how society reacted to that use over the next several decades and without paying any attention to the decisionmaking process that went into it.
composite balsa bonded by glue, the engine nacelles & mountings were made from metal but 90% was balsa. somewhere on youtube is a video which has the reports from 3 us companies given masquitoes at behest of Hap Arnold
Idk, Mr. Terry. Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals on Earth to humans.
Exactly!
13:13 Devil Dart/Demon Dart, Scalpel, Wasp, Horsefly, Dragonfly.... there are probably a ton of other good names for something like that
Watching this video while wearing my Mosquito T-shirt, bought from the DeHavilland Aircraft museum near St Albans in the UK. The prototype Mosquito in the oldest hangar is simply amazing. The plane was designed in the stately home next to the museum and first flown from an airstrip in the adjacent fields. Museum is brilliant.
He did a good job covering this plane but a version of this plane also hunted U-boats with 4 machine guns and a fast firing cannon. They really made sure this plane could do everything.
Woods used in Mosquito are spruce, balsa and birch plywood.
German Moskito, Focke Wulf Ta-154, had a big problem. Germans didn't have glue strong enough. In a contrast, British glue, the Aerolite, was very good and is still in use today.
Mossies had a personal war against the Gestapo and regularly attacked their HQs in many French citites
Nazis: "We have the best air force on the planet."
Brits: "Are you sure about that?"
Americans: "I'm with Churchill."
Watching people realise how absolutely terrifying the mosquito was. And how precise it was at bombing and prison breaks.
I think he's a bit unfair to Beaverbrook. He was appointed half way through 1940. He had the short turn goal of producing enough fighters to win the Battle of Britain. He made some decisions that sacrificed the long term for the short. The Mosquito was one of those. It used used the same engines as two normal fighters, so short term it might have been the right choice not to go with it during 1940. Once the urgent need for more interceptors had passed then they went with the Mosquito in 1941.
The Mosquito was mostly made of 3 ply - two layers of birch sandwiching a layer of balsa. Ash and pine were also used in places.
My music teacher in the 70s had flown in Mosquitos.
As of Wikipedia: Mahogany, birch, balsa, spruce.
They did do a version of the Mossie called the "Tsetse" (As in tsetse fly - another nasty subsaharan insect) that had a quick firing 6 pounder cannon.
Usually never had fighter escort. There were some raids where they had spitfire escorts. The bombers were faster initially than the Spitfire.
Turns out when your planes are faster than the enemy and cant be seen by the enemy, it really is like shooting fish in a barrel
They weren’t stealth aircraft. When they flew low level, the curvature of the earth shortens the range of detection. When they flew in groups as pathfinders, they got lost in the return of the 800 Lancaster and Sterling bombers behind them.
They along with the Bristol Beaufighters were the back bone of the night fighting corps.
They also specialized in intruder missions, loitering around enemy airfields waiting for bombers to turn on their landing lights. Just aim between them.
this plane made herman gøring look stupid a few times during ww2
18:10, bet those gestapo jerks browned/yellowed their pants when those planes hole punched their headquarters.
Like can you imagine. Your just at your desk or wandering around and blam a new door/window. 300+mph when standing still is very fast, by the time they took to blink the bombs went in and out. And suddenly theres a draft to compliment their lost bowl movements.