De Havilland made some beautiful planes, both warplanes and passenger planes, with some graceful lines that just seemed to blend together perfectly, but the Mosquito definitely takes first place. It looks fast just sitting in a hanger!!
Fantastic pair of videos. My Grandfather was a manager at the Mosquito plant in Downsview Ontario (now part of Toronto). Canada built 1032 Mosquitos during and after the war. I've been a big fan of this plane for a long time.
I know your very young Sir (Person in the video) But the Mosquito was NEVER Forgotten and will Always be one of the most popular aircraft of any nation !!! NH, USA
My dad flew the Mosquito night fighter (RCAF flying with the RAF), equipped with radar, 20mm cannons and machine guns. He converted from the Bristol Beaufighter radar night figher - a great gun platform, but a brute of an aircraft that was about 80-90 mph slower than the Mossie. He always spoke of the Mosquito with great fondness and said it was a dream to fly, but he never talked about its combat qualities. After he died, and I read his diaries and logbooks, I learned that he considered it to be a superb weapon for stalking and shooting down German night fighters. He and his navigator/AI-op would fly at very high altitude (and the Mossie was not pressurized), then dive and shoot up the enemy aircraft from above, often without the enemy aircraft having much or any warning. This was why the 20mm cannon were so valuable. At the relative angles and speeds, they might only have the gunsight on the target aircraft (and be able to fire for effect) for one or two seconds. Hitting power was tremendously important.
I believe they ripped out the machine guns and replaced them with the night fighter radar scanner, leaving 4 cannon. The interception method you describe (from above) sounds more like day -time tactics. Radar wasn't effective enough for anything other than creeping up slowly behind the enemy.
@@TheKievKen I've seen different Mossie variants in various museums, and don't remember them all. My dad rarely discussed his wartime flying. I stayed in touch with his Navigator/AI Operator until he died around 2017. He gave me quite a lot of details. I know he wrote down several volumes about their operations, but I never got copies. Those are now in the War Museum in the UK. Early AI often went u/s in flight, and was pretty sketchy even when working. By 1944 AI had improved a lot. As to tactics; I have only the conversations, plus logbook and diary notes to go by. They would vary with the enemy aircraft's position, of course. I'm sure various tactics were used. In 2016 I found a large crate of additional records, handwritten during and just after WWII, unmistakably my dad's writing. They'd been sealed since the 1950's. I had planned to donate everything to the War Museum here, but the RAF have expressed much more interest. The new material would be of use to researchers, I think, so that's a factor in the choice.
"After a car crash left me in a wheel chair, (flying was) a dream I chose to pursue." No "Poor me, I can't walk" bullshit here! I lost me leg when I was three. No one I respected enough to believe has ever told me "you can't do that because of your leg" so I just went ahead and did it. If you think you can't, you won't.
@Patrick Brennan When it comes to being "disabled" yea, it's all you. Everyone has limits, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Never let someone else convince you you can't. Only you know your limits.
I was injured in a car crash in late 2014, nerve and spinal damage dog me daily but like many I see here I go on and soon will see Mosquito RS700 completed at the local bomber command museum here in Alberta!
What would be interesting for a new build and updated Mosquito (2020 version ) - Framed with the original specified wood, skinned with Carbon Fibre, and 2x 1500hp turbo pro with 6 bladed propeller. It would be very quiet, stealthy, able to carry heavy load and very fast.
This misses the main point about it being made of wood. It was actually heavier than stressed aluminium, but offsetting that it was an awful lot easier to build, spruce being a much cheaper material and a lot quicker to put together (glued, mostly) using semi-skilled labour. The spruce is why so many were made in Canada.
It's sad though that while the technological achievments of Great Britain to win WWII were astonishing and had to be considered with great respect, the narrator uses as a transport vehicle a German made car (Audi). It looks like the Germans had the last word.
@@ioannisneokosmidis Volkswagen Audi now owns Rolls Royce and Bentley. The Austin Mini is owned by BMW. Germany was destroyed after 1945. Look where it is now. The good thing is that Germany and us are now allies. Germany is a member of NATO.
Great video. The two WWII pilots' love and enthusiasm for the Mossy was touching, and informative. After about 40 years of learning about it and a good bit of its history, it has become my favorite plane of the war, and after. I am a Yank, but The Mossy is some above the Mustang and the Corsair, for me. It is because of the daring, audacious, and life saving heroics that it and its pilots pulled off, and that so many of the pilots survived because of the many qualities and advantages of the little plane, though I know it wasn't that little. It being made of quality furniture wood, and designed and built so well, contributes to my high opinion of it. Mr. De Havilland was a genius, with the concept and design of it.
My grandad whom sadly passed before I could get to understand his amazing war stories war a Nav on the mosquitoes & the Lancaster, he was shot down twice. Crash landed twice n did a few tours, he was one of the very lucky few who got thru the war.I’ve always loved both aircraft but if I had to chose it was the mosquito who would end up in my hangar.
Glenn Pickard thx so much for that. Yeah he used to tell me lots of stuff when I was a kids n loved going around his place n would sit on the floor next to his chair n he would start into the stories. I was mesmerised, I can remember most of it but not in as great a detail than he could of told. He had loads of medals n DFCs n I still have them inc his wings n rank etc. Thanks again mate. Means a lot to me
“In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium 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.” - Hermann Göring, 1943
It was not German nincompoops at fault, it was Hitler and top generals. The British decided not to attempt Hitler assassination as he was such a bad commander. The Nazi wartime technologies were well progressed but fortunately Allied bombing prevented final development.
@@howardsimpson489 *_"It was not German nincompoops at fault, it was Hitler and top generals."_* That's what's known as the German Generals' excuse. It was a popular view in the 1950s and 60s after people like Manstein, Guderian and Halder published their memoirs. This was, aster all, an unsolicited testimonial from Goering. *_"The British decided not to attempt Hitler assassination as he was such a bad commander."_* Source? I'd be interested to read that. *_"The Nazi wartime technologies were well progressed but fortunately Allied bombing prevented final development."_* That could be said for almost anything at that time. Germany was out on a limb. They were prepared to countenance almost any idea if they thought it had a ghost of a chance of working. The Allies had a longer term view and won with more prosaic equipment, while there was plenty more in the pipeline. German had none of the following: 1) aircraft carriers 2) sonar 3) atomic bomb 4) effective heavy bombers 5) effective infantry tank (after 1943) in significant numbers Despite the common claims, none of the _Wunderwaffe_ projects was ever going to win the war for Germany. Even the Me-262 could not have done so. The widely held belief that it was hamstrung by Hitler wanting to turn it into a _Schnellbomber_ is not true. ALL German fighters had the provision to carry bombs and function as _Jabos._ Equally, none of those Allied weapons _on its own_ was going to win the war either. But the fact was that the Allies had a technical edge in a lot of areas that mattered. Their weapons might have looked prosaic, compared to those _Wunderwaffe_ but they were, on the whole, superior to virtually everything else and they had the added advantages of numbers and fuel. But to assume that the Allies only won for those reasons would be wrong. Germany knew from the start that she would have to achieve a quick victory to prevail. When she could not, her fight was one for survival and no technology was going to change that.
@@howardsimpson489 The 'German nincompoops' Goering referred to were people like Willy Messerschmitt. When Goering wanted to mass produce an exact copy of the Mosquito, Messerschmitt said - rightly - that it couldn't be done. Germany simply didn't have the expertise in the necessary areas and it would take a long time to develop it. Kurt Tank tried with the Ta-154 and failed but that wasn't a Mosquito and never could have been.
This video portrays the Mosquito as the A -10 of its time. Wish someone would produce these magnificent machines for general aviation. I'd love to go up in one of these beauties!
Most people couldn't afford the fuel, let alone the actual aircraft. My step father had a surplus Mustang back in the 50's,.. and while people would come out to see him land if he circled more then once, even then he said if you had it throttled just enough to not drop from the sky, it would suck the gas unbelievably. A whole different ball game when you move to performance aircraft like these. Takes very DEEP pockets.
The Mosquito is a wonderful example of a somewhat obscure airplane that certainly made a significant contribution to the overall WWII effort which is often hidden under the Spitfires, Mustangs, P38's.... etc. Few airplanes could keep up with it, and it was hard to find on radar's due to its wooden construction, not to mention its two wonderful Rolls Royce Merlin engines.
Not so. Top speed for Mk Iat 18000 feet 367mph, Me 109 had similar performance. Top speed for Seafire Mk 47 452 mph. Mosquite M2 366 mph Mk XVI 415 mph
Tom. Why show the speed of a post war Seafire Mk 47? It was not quite as fast as the Mk 46 and the Spitfire Mk XIV of late 1943 did 448 mph, the Mk 21 of early 1945 did 451 mph. The fastest Mosquito did 424 mph or using Nitrous Oxide 437 mph.
Wilbur you need to calm down, get back on your meds. There are many mosquito versions that went over 400 mph, here is a link to some speed testing done May/1943 on a mosquito B Mk IX with merlin 72 engines. www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mosquito/lr495.pdf If you take the trouble to read the first document you will see that the testing was done at a weight of 21,910 pounds, a weight corresponding to having full fuel and oil and a 2,000 pound bomb load. At 3000 rpm/18 psi boost with supercharger in MS gear it went 393 mph at 13,800 feet. At 3000 rpm/18 psi boost with supercharger in FS gear it went 405 mph at 25,700 feet. Just imagine how much faster that aircraft would be on the way home with no bombs left and half of its fuel left.
I never even THOUGHT about the stealth aspect! The Mosquito was THE best plane of them all! Including the P-38 and my beloved P-47 Republic Thunderbolt. (I kinda liked the ME-262, also.)
At 4:25 . . . "If an airplane looks right, generally it is right." The great American aeronautical engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson would agree. He said, "If an airplane looks good, it'll fly good."
I discovered the Mosquito in the local library in a book by the same title. The drawings showed how the wood plys were laid on one another. It's easy to see how strong the fuselage was, and how light, with no rivets, fast. Thanks for taking us along. Like the interviews, living history from the people who lived it.
Mosquito beats the spitfire and I’ll even admit, it beats my second favorite, the Mustang. But it’s tied with my #1 favorite, the A-10 Thunderbolt/Warthog. I even think the Mosquito was the prototype, for the later, A-10 Thunderbolt/Warthog!!
An other well known attack was the attack on the Gestapo headquarter in The "Shell house" in Copenhagen, Denmark. My mother was in her parents apartment on the fourth floor on "Strandboulrvarden" (The beach boulevard"). I In order to avoid German anti-aircraft guns they flew along the street, so low that my mother could see the pilot in the cockpit trough the window! Unfortunately the French school was hit by an accident and lots of children died.
What a fantastic thing for this adorable young man to achieve! The Mosquito is one of my favorite WWII British aircraft. Two Merlins! What's not to like? Damn! He got to interview Eric Brown! He's such a cutie, too! Great video. Thanks for posting. He's so excited and so overwhelmed that he cries with joy and can't look at the camera. That is so charming! To want something so badly as he does for so long and not only get to ride in his lifetime favorite aircraft, but get to put his hands on the controls and actually fly thing has to be overwhelming. Bless him. You can't feel sorry for him because he's clearly never be ket his disability stop him. He deserves only admiration. Interesting that another Brit with a disability was quite famous, Douglas Baderm, who lost his legs in an air crash. He had tin legs, got back in the pilot's seat and flew Hurricanes or Spitfires during the Battle of Britain in 1940. He was shot down over France, imprisoned and escaped from a German POW prison! He's adorable! OMG! I've developed a crush! I want to hug him and give him a kiss on his forehead! He's so sweet!
Read the book Night Fighter by C.F.Rawnsley. He was the radar officer and had to reload the cannons in the dark while making turns. They shot down 26 German planes at night. A very good book and well detailed of each mission. He was lucky to survive.
I should add it was 26 German bombers and fighter bombers. The radar equipped Mossies weren’t allowed to cross the European coast until late in the war, their radar was secret. Once turned loose over the continent, they had more “customers,” usually German night fighters. One Mossie crew downed four Germans during a single flight.
the design probably sounded impossible to most and that is what is great about it because it made the impossible possible and helped defeat the enemy in many ways along with Hurricanes, Spitfires, Lancasters, Wellingtons, et al.
@Brian Roome P38 Copy? The P38 was different in design compared to the Mosquito. The P38 was the most unique of all WW2 aircraft. Both love the aircraft (Mosquito and the P-38 Lightning).But I guess based on your comment you are probably an employee or employer of Beechcraft and several US companies who loathed the Mosquito in 1940.
About 20,000 Spitfires were made during the war. 14,583 Hurricanes were made from 1937-1944. 3,317 Typhoons were made (1941-1945.) And about 7,781 Mosquitoes were made during the war and after (1940-1950). But somehow the author thinks it was the Mosquito that 'saved' Britain. No... If I had to judge (I'm a Texican.. as in Texas) I'd say it was split between the Hurricanes and the Spitfires. They stopped the Germans from invading by denying the Germans control of the air. And, of course, the Radar network did heap work in guiding them to the fight.
Mosquito wood construction was nearly Invisible to radar, high speed and long range allowed critical missions that had greater impact than other sorties.
I would argue that they made so many Spitfire/Hurricane because those got shot down more commonly. The Mosquito was/is largely overlooked (imho) because its not as sexy looking as the other more well known fighters.
Deaf Smith - no one plane saved Britain, Hitler thinking he knew better than his generals saved Britain. Once the invasion was cancelled, and Germany focused on Russia, British industry had a chance to regroup and churned out new models of spitfires which were more than a match for the new Me 109 and Fw 190’s, Hurricanes, Mosquitos, Typhoons and Lancaster’s hammered the Germans on the ground, at sea and in the air day and night in ground attack, bombing, and hit/run raids as Germany reconfigured older, slower and less manoeuvrable aircraft like Me 110’s, Do-17’s and Ju-87 and 88’s into other roles like night fighters and ground attack aircraft because they became fodder for the increasingly frequent British fighter sweeps while Spitfire and Mosquito Recon aircraft ranged freely due to their speed and altitude. So many other aircraft of the time became iconic like the Beaufighter, Tempest, Blenheim, Barracuda, Swordfish and so on. You could probably argue that towards 1943-44 British aircraft were superior to axis aircraft in nearly every role you could think of.
Deaf Smith Correct sir, first issue of concern was diminish the Nazi domination of the skies, hence good fighters (Hurricanes & Spits) and Radar was a big bonus!
The first time I saw a mosquito I was instantly drawn to it. Without knowing it was made mostly of wood. That fact made me even more in awe of this beauty. It’s still one of the most eye catching planes ever made in my opinion.
My Gramps flew DH-98's in the RCAF getting ready to go to Japan. Hunted U-Boats out of Gander in BR-10 Squadron in the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans before that. A very deadly occupation in 1941-42.
gary gibbs My dad was trained to operate the AI Radar in the night-fighter variant. OTU course ended around VE-DAY and he was repatriated to Canada expecting to end up fighting the Japanese. This ended with VJ-DAY and he was demobbed. The RCAF sent him to UofT to study Mechanical Engineering and he re-entered the RCAF in 49 and wound up in the party that opened Gimli, MacDonald and Portage for jet flying training on the T-33. Graduates went on to fly the Canadair Sabre or Avro CF-100 as part of Canada's "Big Air Force" contribution to NATO and NORAD. Dad went on to train electronics and radar techs to man the DEW and Pinetree Radar lines. The CF-100 was a lot like the night fighter Mosquito, only faster, higher, longer range.
The one plane that does look as "right" as the Mosquito is the Spitfire - the Mosquito is a twin engined Spitfire with two Rolls Royce Merlin Engines and similar broad wings
I had disabled friend that wanted to experience more mobility, so I introduced him to scuba diving! You can fly over mountains without an airplane! Try it, it's easy with buoyancy compensators! If your worrying about not enough air, problems with diving is too much air!
Totally incredible plane and the way you explained different thing's on these plane's ..great design of this plane too..you did an amazing job on this video too...I do greatly appreciate your videos too..Thank you so so much..
I’ve loved the look of this airplane ever since I saw a photograph of one. I never thought I would ever see a real one. When I finally did, it was a static display (at the time) at Canada’s Aviation Museum in Ottawa. Shed a tear that day. I learned there were people restoring these airplanes not more than 30 minutes away by plane ride, near Victoria, BC. One day I saw one flying over the Straights of Juan de Fuca, assumably during a test flight. The sound was surreal. Amazing sight.
I wonder about the Mosquito's Merlin engine stalls. I'm told that at the outset of the war, the Germans quickly realized that if they could attack from above and drive a Spitfire into a dive, the float attitude would result in a flooded carb and the Spit pilot would be unable to restart the engine. In short order, an engineer, a woman, designed a restrictor which limited carb flooding and almost immediate restarts became possible. Why was this not so with the Mosquito? I know there were countless versions of the Merlin over time, but the restrictor was a fairly early mod. I regret that in old age I've forgotten the engineer's name, but I believe her invention did a heck of a lot to save Britain and eventually win the war.
The most successful aircraft of WW2 is without a question the hawker hurricane if you look at sertisticks the Hawker Hurricane has shot down more enemy aircraft than any other plane to-date
At 19:51 . . . The narrator is shown flying his own plane. Since he had been previously shown sitting in a wheelchair with his legs paralyzed, his plane must have specialized hand controls for the rudder, since he would not be able to operate normal rudder pedals
There is a dismantled but complete WWII Mosquito in the City Archives warehouse in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It's been there for many years, quite well preserved. Only in recent years has the privately-funded Aviation Museum at the former Edmonton Municipal Airport (XD; IATA: YXD, ICAO: CYXD) grown large enough that its reassembly and restoration may be in the cards. For this Mossie to be restored, perhaps even to flying condition, would be a fitting tribute, alongside the other aircraft that are very important to Canadian aviation history.
Jim Baritone HI there. The de Havilland Mosquito that you speak of is currently stored in the Alberta Aviation Museum in Edmonton, site of the former Municipal Air port. She is a former Spartan Air Services " Mossie". The restoration was static for display only, and took place during the early to mid 1980s. I had the pleasure of visiting the museum last summer, and the Mossie " wears the uniform of RCAF 418 " City Of Edmonton " Squadron. The nose art is that of HairLess Joe. Driver Russ Bannock, Conductor F/O Bruce RAF. It was quite a thrill to see a " Mossie " up close. No. 418 was one six " Mossie " units the RCAF fielded, and was the one to be in the " Intruder " role, and holds a number of distinctions. One of which is the top scoring RCAF unit of the War. Cheers.
Arrow B Flight. Thank you very much for the update. I am an Edmontonian born and raised, and my dad was a F/O in the RCAF, and flew night fighters, both Beaufighters and Mosquitos for most of WWII. Sadly, he died at quite a young age, probably from flying unpressurized aircraft at very high altitiude while doing "intruder" work (or so the verdict went). I have his logs, and (surprisingly) his Navigator/AI op is still alive and very chipper. I believe he'll be 101 this year. I hope to visit him at his home in England this year. In my own life, a combination of factors - the death of the city archivist I knew, for many years plus some other sad happenings in my own family, made me lose touch with the current state of that particular Mossie. My father, a Mossie night fighter pilot, knew Russ Bannock, and I'm sure they met after the war. I may have met him when I was much younger, but to be honest I can't remember. I'm ashamed to admit I have not been to the Aviation Museum on Kingsway and 116th for a number of years, although I go past it quite often. The final "odd" part of this is that I served in 418 Sqdn. while in the RCAF reserves, when it was based in Edmonton. Among my other contributions to the defense of the Realm, I played clarinet in the Squadron band. I'm sure Her Majesty was suitably grateful:-) That's back quite a while now - reading what I've just written, and remembering the things you mention, makes me feel like I'm getting a bit long in the tooth. Thanks ever so much for the updated information. I have had only a small percentage of normal vision in my right eye and none in my left for the last two years. I had surgery some weeks ago, the result of which is that (I hope) that problem will be recified, and I'll be able to start getting out to see these things once again. Cheers from River City!
Jim Baritone Good evening Jim It is a small world. It just so happens that my sister also served with No. 418 Air Reserve for a number of years. At present, she volunteers at the museum. She is interested in meeting you. If you drop in on Tuesday before lunch, ask the cashier to call Linda from the Sqdn room. Good luck with your health, i do hope things turn for the better for you. Also, i do hope your able to make it to England and meet up with your Dad's Nav / AI Op. I can well imagine the stories of the adventures they shared will warm your heart. Cheers.
Just typed a reply, hit the wrong key, and wiped out the lot! Typical!. Anyhow, I will make a point of visiting the Museum on a Tuesday before lunch time as soon as possible, and I'll ask for Linda. I don't know if it will turn out we've ever met, but stranger things have happened! By good luck (and no doubt some quiet words with the officals who assigned crews), my dad and Charles stayed as a crew for almost the entire war. This is quite unusual, I'm told, but somehow they remained a team. Possibly success or continued survival were factors. Charles has told me a number of stories of my fathers piloting, both of the Beau and of the Mossie, and to be honest some of them speak to very good luck, as well as his skill as a pilot. This includes one about a "no-fuel-engines-out" landing in the top of a large oak tree. My dad, after the random crunching noises had stopped, was apparently quite sanguine about the whole business, and suggested they'd best climb down the tree and go and find some hot cocoa. As they say, "any landing you walk away from ...." He never spoke about flying on ops, but just a few years ago, after my mothers death, I found a very dusty box in the back of a cupboard in her house, and in that there was a stack of coil-bound excercise books - about 40 in all - and they are a daily diary written by my father - there's an entry for almost every day of his wartime service, from flight school and his first solo right through to where they were supposed to be preparing to go to the Pacific. Unlike his log books, the entries of which are pretty thin, his diaries are very, very detailed. How he managed to write and keep them, since keeping diaries was strictly against RCAF and RAF regs, I've no idea. But they've been a real eye-opener - he died in 1989, and I uncovered them only in 2016. Charles has told me several stories when visiting here, and on my one previous visit to England in 1992. It's not so much a question of the stories being hard to believe (and some are), it's that there's no context. I have taken my time going through the diaries, especially as I was without vision for an extended period. But they're an amazing account. I'll have a lot to talk over with Charles when I visit him later in the year! Thank you for your reply, and all of the information. Greetings from River City!
It should be awesome to depict all those adventures that the RAF pilots lived flying Mosquitos in videos like the History Channel's series "Dogfights".
Though the Mosquito was undeniably a fantastic light attack aircraft and significant jack-of-all trades it certainly was not the "Plane that Saved Britain". Nor does that honor go to that beautiful and quintessential dogfighter, the Spitfire. The Plane that Saved Britain was the never been kissed ugly step-sister, Sydney Camm's redoubtable Hawker Hurricane. Well done, old girl.
Correct- thank you. BTW, a Spit aficianado said that great as it was, his main love, its carburetor lost dogfighting capability in a forward dive whereas the fuel-injection 109 had no problem in this, giving it an advantage. So why did Goering wish he had Spits?
@@RalphPhilbrook In his book, "Die Ersten und Der Letzten", Galland explains that though he did not actually prefer the Spitfire to his beloved Me-109, he did feel it was a better defensive fighter and Goering had just berated his fighter commanders for not staying close enough to the bombers to defend them properly (in the bomber commanders' opinions), thus tying them to a soley defensive mode. He even hinted at cowardice. This greatly angered the fighter commanders and Galland, never one to mince words, when asked what he needed to do the job, made his famous (sarcastic) reply, "Give me a squadron of Spitfires". BTW, I highly recommend Galland's book. No politics or nationalism. Just plain facts and the story of the Luftwaffe from Germany's General of Fighters.
@@RalphPhilbrook Believe it was Adolf Galland that said he wanted a squadron of Spits, not Goering, but Goering was the recipient of the message. The carb. problem was worked on and corrected after the battle. It did not lose its dog fighting capability. As the carb float rose in a steep dive, a quick rollover corrected the problem, but still it was not helpful and a distraction.The Spitfire could out turn the 109 and was slightly faster at altitudes where most of the fighting took place, 10-18000 feet. The Luftwaffe pilots became somewhat intimidated when they saw a squadron of Spits heading towards them, because of continual 109 losses. Plus radar was guiding the RAF fighters, not so for the 109s. And finally the 109 pilots had the extra burden of trying to protect the Messerschmidt 210 "Destroyer" that the Hurricanes were assigned to take out. These are some of the reasons why the Spitfire received the term "Legendary."
Would not the plane that 'saved Britain' have been the Spitfire, or, by actual most number of enemy shot down, the Hurricane? There is little reference to the mosquito during the Battle of Britain, which was the battle which actually saved Britain (perhaps because it wasn't in service until that battle was over).
True, true, true, however the lack of ‘seasoned’ pilots in the RAF was a huge problem (many pilots had less than 10-15hrs flight time), thank the Polish squadrons & their experience.
A remarkable, iconic aircraft, almost infinitely adaptable. But hardly THE plane that saved Britain. Spitfire, Hurricane, Wellington, Lancaster and many others deserve that accolade.
Wooden planes also would not show up on the older radar of the day, that used VHF as the parts of the plane that were metal were small enough compared to the wavelength that they would not be seen.
i had a relative who graduated from the empire air training scheme in canada.he told me that the aircraft that everyone wanted to fly was the mosquito.
How well-regarded was the mosquito? Well, let's put it this way: The Germans demanded a similar plane was designed and they indeed tried. It resulted in the Focke-Wulf Ta 154 - designed by the legendary Kurt Tank - and it was even named "Moskito". It never became a success, partly due to the fact that the glue required to build this - also - plywood aircraft was barely available as the factories making it were bombed out by the allies
While no one denies the Mosquito was a good, high performance combat aircraft, it was not the plane that saved Britain. The Bristol Beaufighter entered service as a night fighter at least a year before the Mosquito. It deserves more credit for the night defence of Britain during the time during the latter part of the Blitz of 1940, and was more heavily armed than the Mosquito. During the 1940 battle of Britain, the Spitfire and the Hurricane did more to save Britain than the Mosquito ever did. While the Mosquito served as high speed photographic reconnaissance, light bomber, night fighter, and fighter bomber/anti-shipping, it was not the very best at any of them. The Lockheed Lightning PR versions were able to fly faster and higher, and were more maneuverable. The Bristol Beaufighter was far more versatile as a fighter-bomber and as an anti-shipping aircraft than the Mosquito. For the record, even the Lightning, Mustang, Thunderbolt, and the Ju 88 were all equal to or better than the Mosquito in these roles. While it was an excellent night fighter, it could not compare to the Heinkel He 219. To be clear, although the Mosquito was a valuable addition to the squadrons of the RAF, it was never able to claim to be as good as its rabid fans make it out to be, and most definitely was not the plane that saved Britain.
Peter Montagnon 1134 Mosquito's were constructed in Canada. The fuselage by G.M. of Canada, Massey Ferguson - wings, Canada Power Boat - flaps, Otaco did the under carriage, and Boeing ( U.S.A ) assembled the tail planes. oh, i almost left out the birch veneer to skin the wings came from wood lots in New Brunswick.
From what I have read , the Mossie could be a bit dicey with a single engine landing. Post war RAF pilots had to practice asymmetric landings , after so many fatal crashes the policy was stopped. Not being a pilot this explanation could be BS . But increasing power to the live engine too forcibly would cause a flick roll . The great Night Fighter Ace and test pilot John Cunningham's dictum was extra speed , his thinking better to walk away from a crash at the far end of a runway , then to be dug out at the beginning.
Actually the narrative is mistaken about the hundreds of little workshops all across Britain.My father and his brothers had started a furniture business in Leyton in Eastern London in the nineteen twenties and thirties. In wartime they were provided by the government with large scale machinery for essentially engineering in timber and they mass-produce mosquitoes I have no doubt the other large scale manufacturers of furniture were pressed into the same service
PLEASE, please CUT OUT the USELESS "MUSIC", and let us clearily listem to dialogs, comments and A/C real SOUND!!! NO music, it IS spoilling such A GOOD video!!!! CUT IT OUT!!!!!!
A Rodrigues if this was created for tv or cable it is going to have a sound track. Your problem is your watching it on RUclips. Compression does all kinds of things to the sound. If it bothered you that much pay for it on iTunes or another service and get real nice sound. But your a cheap bastard and you watch it here and. O plain about the compressed sound.
While the Mossie was an awesome plane, it's a disservice to it and the other RAF fighters, during WWII, to label it as a savior. Without question, Britain and Fighter Command were on their knees during the summer of 1940 and the aircraft that fought the Luftwaffe were the Hurricane and the Spitfire. Their efforts, combined with psychotic German strategy, lead to Britain's survival.
Paladin Also the way the british rested their piolts by moving them in and out of the zone of heavy action. The Germans failed to do this and so gradually lost their experienced piolets.
Paladin 06 Agree 100%, 1940 was a bad time for the RAF, lack of seasoned pilots was a real issue, thank God for the Polish squadrons, they were real champs!
Uh, the Mosquito was built at what is now YYZ (Pearson International - Toronto). If you go to the first main hall of the "International Centre" where all the car shows are, etc. That was the building they built them in.
@@TheTheotherfoot And yet more people move to the U.S. than the U.K. In fact in recent years tens of thousands of your wealthy have left the U.K. to get away from it.
Very nice videos but the title is wrong, the Mosquito was not the plane that saved Britain. Spitfire an Huracanes were the planes that really saved Britain during the battle of England.
The attack in 43 was doomed a failure - twelve bomgs dropped, 5 didn't explode, an only tree hit the building, but went strait thrue an did't do much damage. Six civillan killed an two germans - none gestapo personell. The bombing did not affect the daily routina at the HQ! The falsifiet report on the missions sucsess was written by Sq. leader George Parry and it did not leave him much honour. One of the mosquitos was shot down by two focke wulf 190 and ende in th Enger-water. Flight Sergeant Gordon Carter og Sergeant William Young died there. The rest (3) returned to Sumburgh Head. In all it was a dumb and meaningless attemp! Then the Royal Air Force sendt 12 mosquito bombers to Oslo, at new years ev in 1944 - none of the bombs hit the target. Six of the planes didn't drop their bombs because of the fire-smog made from the six first planes. Several civillian buildings and on trolly-bus destroyed, 113 people killed, of 84 was sivilian! Get your facts in order and don't blindly trust the british propaganda!
When they bombed Serbia in 1944. they killed more people then Germans in 1941.Only on Ortodox Easter 16.-17.april 1944,British and American airforces even managed to hit the maternity hospital in Belgrad and to kill several newborn babies and their mothers.From april to september just Belgrade was bombed 11 times.In Podgorica,1/6 population were killed.Over 25 cities were bombed,many few times,and very often places with no importance for war effort...Somehow when they do it than it is KIND bombing,but when for example Russians bomb someone,then it is "savage bombardment".
@@zutabrada6956 that was always the normal. But the winners always write the history to their own liking. The bombing of Dresten was a genoside - the city had absolutly no military value. No strategical ore other value!
@@kraagaard Agree.But moral high ground ecoing from these shows is just disturbing,at least for me.Hipocrisy is iritating.Also when they are sorry for the Poland,but Chechoslovakia,exactly year earlier has been given to the nacis,by British
One of my favorite planes but wow... "It was largely thanks to the mosquito that the RAF destroyed Germany's great industrial centers". Amazing! I thought it was an Allied effort but apparently the RAF did it alone, with the help of the Mosquito. Well I'm sure the non-RAF pilots that died over Germany won't mind being omitted.
Most people, the average person, don't know about it, especially since it is in almost no air shows. They'll have heard of the SPitfire and Hurricane, B-17, and the Mustang, and that's about it.
er scuse me ...the Hurricane assisted by the Spitfire saved Britain . later , The :"Mossie " was fantastic though . When I was about 10 , my friend Brian and I were digging a hole for our latest underground bunker , we found a small shell ...live ... we showed it to his Dad who was an ex "desert rat" , it was a 20 mm cannon shell from a Mossie , we lived about 1k from the channel on the south coast of England so not surprising ,,,his dad would not let us keep the shell ...he called the police ...misery...
By the end of 2016 there were again 3 restored Mosquitos... A whole aircraft made from wood, except the few important parts, good that it entered war quite late? or could it absorb some rounds or even flak fire?
The sad thing is there used to be a factory up the road from me that built wings for the Mosquito typical of the local authority history means nothing and it was flattened to make way for a housing estate
The attack on the "Victoria-building" in Oslo was a failure, the bombs mostely missed and failed to kill a single Gestapo member, in hindsight its overshadowed by the second attack on the buiding in 1944 in wich the RAF leveled a city block and strafed and bombed a tram......With only the Victoria-building left untouched. It was the worst blow for the british in the proganda war aimed at Norwegians.
Well hay Skipper you where in the Royal Marines so you are no piker and you have overcome a situation that would put most men in the ground . If you ever make it to Alaska I'm wanting to take you out for a pint and maybe we can go fishing. And you can fly my old Otter she isn't a Mossy but it's still got that feeling and I'm 73 but me and my old bird can still do a barrel roll with my floats on at 100 feet and 120 indicated
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De Havilland made some beautiful planes, both warplanes and passenger planes, with some graceful lines that just seemed to blend together perfectly, but the Mosquito definitely takes first place. It looks fast just sitting in a hanger!!
Fantastic pair of videos. My Grandfather was a manager at the Mosquito plant in Downsview Ontario (now part of Toronto). Canada built 1032 Mosquitos during and after the war. I've been a big fan of this plane for a long time.
Superb show. The Mossie deserves to be as loved as the Spitfire.
@Patrick Brennan indeed sir
Thankful there is a man with so much passion on this awesome machine
I know your very young Sir (Person in the video) But the Mosquito was NEVER Forgotten and will Always be one of the most popular aircraft of any nation !!! NH, USA
My dad flew the Mosquito night fighter (RCAF flying with the RAF), equipped with radar, 20mm cannons and machine guns. He converted from the Bristol Beaufighter radar night figher - a great gun platform, but a brute of an aircraft that was about 80-90 mph slower than the Mossie. He always spoke of the Mosquito with great fondness and said it was a dream to fly, but he never talked about its combat qualities. After he died, and I read his diaries and logbooks, I learned that he considered it to be a superb weapon for stalking and shooting down German night fighters. He and his navigator/AI-op would fly at very high altitude (and the Mossie was not pressurized), then dive and shoot up the enemy aircraft from above, often without the enemy aircraft having much or any warning. This was why the 20mm cannon were so valuable. At the relative angles and speeds, they might only have the gunsight on the target aircraft (and be able to fire for effect) for one or two seconds. Hitting power was tremendously important.
My dad flew Mosquitos too in 239 Squadron after fit flying Beaufighters in 272 squadron .
I heard a qoute somewhere that went, "Radar, cannons, machineguns,,,, sounds like a FUN NIGHT,,,, ".
;))
I believe they ripped out the machine guns and replaced them with the night fighter radar scanner, leaving 4 cannon. The interception method you describe (from above) sounds more like day -time tactics. Radar wasn't effective enough for anything other than creeping up slowly behind the enemy.
@@TheKievKen I've seen different Mossie variants in various museums, and don't remember them all. My dad rarely discussed his wartime flying. I stayed in touch with his Navigator/AI Operator until he died around 2017. He gave me quite a lot of details. I know he wrote down several volumes about their operations, but I never got copies. Those are now in the War Museum in the UK.
Early AI often went u/s in flight, and was pretty sketchy even when working. By 1944 AI had improved a lot. As to tactics; I have only the conversations, plus logbook and diary notes to go by. They would vary with the enemy aircraft's position, of course. I'm sure various tactics were used.
In 2016 I found a large crate of additional records, handwritten during and just after WWII, unmistakably my dad's writing. They'd been sealed since the 1950's. I had planned to donate everything to the War Museum here, but the RAF have expressed much more interest. The new material would be of use to researchers, I think, so that's a factor in the choice.
That's a really awesome story about your grandad, thank you for sharing it. Cheers from Vancouver
"After a car crash left me in a wheel chair, (flying was) a dream I chose to pursue."
No "Poor me, I can't walk" bullshit here!
I lost me leg when I was three. No one I respected enough to believe has ever told me "you can't do that because of your leg" so I just went ahead and did it.
If you think you can't, you won't.
You don't have any functioning gray matter left do you!!!
@@petermontagnon4440 What are you talking about?
@Patrick Brennan When it comes to being "disabled" yea, it's all you. Everyone has limits, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.
Never let someone else convince you you can't. Only you know your limits.
Eric, I think Douglas Bader would agree with you.
I was injured in a car crash in late 2014, nerve and spinal damage dog me daily but like many I see here I go on and soon will see Mosquito RS700 completed at the local bomber command museum here in Alberta!
What would be interesting for a new build and updated Mosquito (2020 version ) - Framed with the original specified wood, skinned with Carbon Fibre, and 2x 1500hp turbo pro with 6 bladed propeller. It would be very quiet, stealthy, able to carry heavy load and very fast.
This misses the main point about it being made of wood. It was actually heavier than stressed aluminium, but offsetting that it was an awful lot easier to build, spruce being a much cheaper material and a lot quicker to put together (glued, mostly) using semi-skilled labour. The spruce is why so many were made in Canada.
I believe all the spruce used to build them was sourced from Canada as well.
What a remarkable group of men. Designer, pilots and an inspirational host. A wonderful presentation.
It's sad though that while the technological achievments of Great Britain to win WWII were astonishing and had to be considered with great respect, the narrator uses as a transport vehicle a German made car (Audi). It looks like the Germans had the last word.
@@ioannisneokosmidis Volkswagen Audi now owns Rolls Royce and Bentley. The Austin Mini is owned by BMW. Germany was destroyed after 1945. Look where it is now. The good thing is that Germany and us are now allies. Germany is a member of NATO.
Great video. The two WWII pilots' love and enthusiasm for the Mossy was touching, and informative. After about 40 years of learning about it and a good bit of its history, it has become my favorite plane of the war, and after. I am a Yank, but The Mossy is some above the Mustang and the Corsair, for me. It is because of the daring, audacious, and life saving heroics that it and its pilots pulled off, and that so many of the pilots survived because of the many qualities and advantages of the little plane, though I know it wasn't that little. It being made of quality furniture wood, and designed and built so well, contributes to my high opinion of it. Mr. De Havilland was a genius, with the concept and design of it.
New Zealand has amazing ability to restore and rebuild classic warbirds incl mosquitos.
You mean a few guys in New Zealand right? ;)
@@TheKievKen indeed. Ardmore Engineering, AVSPEC and the others are down at Omaka. Pretty much the world std in warbird prop planes restoration
Kudos to you Sir for your courage in getting your Pilots Licence. And the Mossie ? Totally amazing.
“How do you train for that?”
“You don’t…you just do it”
From a young vet to an old one, I salute you sir. You are a genuine bad ass!
That was a wonderful beautifully narrated and filmed segment on the De Havilland Mosquito. Thank you! - I watched both Part 1 & 2.
My grandad whom sadly passed before I could get to understand his amazing war stories war a Nav on the mosquitoes & the Lancaster, he was shot down twice. Crash landed twice n did a few tours, he was one of the very lucky few who got thru the war.I’ve always loved both aircraft but if I had to chose it was the mosquito who would end up in my hangar.
you should write a book about him if you were able to get him to speak about his exploits. He was a real person doing his bit to save humanity !
Glenn Pickard thx so much for that. Yeah he used to tell me lots of stuff when I was a kids n loved going around his place n would sit on the floor next to his chair n he would start into the stories. I was mesmerised, I can remember most of it but not in as great a detail than he could of told. He had loads of medals n DFCs n I still have them inc his wings n rank etc. Thanks again mate. Means a lot to me
What a nice guy and how wonderful he accomplished his dream to once fly a mosquito. Great video's/documentary!
“In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium 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.”
- Hermann Göring, 1943
It was not German nincompoops at fault, it was Hitler and top generals. The British decided not to attempt Hitler assassination as he was such a bad commander. The Nazi wartime technologies were well progressed but fortunately Allied bombing prevented final development.
@@howardsimpson489
*_"It was not German nincompoops at fault, it was Hitler and top generals."_*
That's what's known as the German Generals' excuse. It was a popular view in the 1950s and 60s after people like Manstein, Guderian and Halder published their memoirs.
This was, aster all, an unsolicited testimonial from Goering.
*_"The British decided not to attempt Hitler assassination as he was such a bad commander."_*
Source? I'd be interested to read that.
*_"The Nazi wartime technologies were well progressed but fortunately Allied bombing prevented final development."_*
That could be said for almost anything at that time. Germany was out on a limb. They were prepared to countenance almost any idea if they thought it had a ghost of a chance of working. The Allies had a longer term view and won with more prosaic equipment, while there was plenty more in the pipeline. German had none of the following:
1) aircraft carriers
2) sonar
3) atomic bomb
4) effective heavy bombers
5) effective infantry tank (after 1943) in significant numbers
Despite the common claims, none of the _Wunderwaffe_ projects was ever going to win the war for Germany. Even the Me-262 could not have done so. The widely held belief that it was hamstrung by Hitler wanting to turn it into a _Schnellbomber_ is not true. ALL German fighters had the provision to carry bombs and function as _Jabos._ Equally, none of those Allied weapons _on its own_ was going to win the war either. But the fact was that the Allies had a technical edge in a lot of areas that mattered. Their weapons might have looked prosaic, compared to those _Wunderwaffe_ but they were, on the whole, superior to virtually everything else and they had the added advantages of numbers and fuel.
But to assume that the Allies only won for those reasons would be wrong. Germany knew from the start that she would have to achieve a quick victory to prevail. When she could not, her fight was one for survival and no technology was going to change that.
@@howardsimpson489
The 'German nincompoops' Goering referred to were people like Willy Messerschmitt. When Goering wanted to mass produce an exact copy of the Mosquito, Messerschmitt said - rightly - that it couldn't be done. Germany simply didn't have the expertise in the necessary areas and it would take a long time to develop it. Kurt Tank tried with the Ta-154 and failed but that wasn't a Mosquito and never could have been.
This video portrays the Mosquito as the A -10 of its time. Wish someone would produce these magnificent machines for general aviation. I'd love to go up in one of these beauties!
Most people couldn't afford the fuel, let alone the actual aircraft. My step father had a surplus Mustang back in the 50's,.. and while people would come out to see him land if he circled more then once, even then he said if you had it throttled just enough to not drop from the sky, it would suck the gas unbelievably. A whole different ball game when you move to performance aircraft like these. Takes very DEEP pockets.
This host really is great. I'm hoping to see him do more doc's like this.
The Mosquito is a wonderful example of a somewhat obscure airplane that certainly made a significant contribution to the overall WWII effort which is often hidden under the Spitfires, Mustangs, P38's.... etc. Few airplanes could keep up with it, and it was hard to find on radar's due to its wooden construction, not to mention its two wonderful Rolls Royce Merlin engines.
Perhaps you should limit your comments to farm equipment.
Not so. Top speed for Mk Iat 18000 feet 367mph, Me 109 had similar performance.
Top speed for Seafire Mk 47 452 mph.
Mosquite M2 366 mph
Mk XVI 415 mph
Tom.
Why show the speed of a post war Seafire Mk 47? It was not quite as fast as the Mk 46 and the Spitfire Mk XIV of late 1943 did 448 mph, the Mk 21 of early 1945 did 451 mph.
The fastest Mosquito did 424 mph or using Nitrous Oxide 437 mph.
Wilbur you need to calm down, get back on your meds. There are many mosquito versions that went over 400 mph, here is a link to some speed testing done May/1943 on a mosquito B Mk IX with merlin 72 engines.
www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mosquito/lr495.pdf
If you take the trouble to read the first document you will see that the testing was done at a weight of 21,910 pounds, a weight corresponding to having full fuel and oil and a 2,000 pound bomb load.
At 3000 rpm/18 psi boost with supercharger in MS gear it went 393 mph at
13,800 feet.
At 3000 rpm/18 psi boost with supercharger in FS gear it went 405 mph at 25,700 feet.
Just imagine how much faster that aircraft would be on the way home with no bombs left and half of its fuel left.
I never even THOUGHT about the stealth aspect! The Mosquito was THE best plane of them all! Including the P-38 and my beloved P-47 Republic Thunderbolt. (I kinda liked the ME-262, also.)
At 4:25 . . . "If an airplane looks right, generally it is right." The great American aeronautical engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson would agree. He said, "If an airplane looks good, it'll fly good."
I discovered the Mosquito in the local library in a book by the same title. The drawings showed how the wood plys were laid on one another. It's easy to see how strong the fuselage was, and how light, with no rivets, fast. Thanks for taking us along. Like the interviews, living history from the people who lived it.
Mosquito beats the spitfire and I’ll even admit, it beats my second favorite, the Mustang. But it’s tied with my #1 favorite, the A-10 Thunderbolt/Warthog. I even think the Mosquito was the prototype, for the later, A-10 Thunderbolt/Warthog!!
Charles Conder I agree 100%, I’ve always considered the ‘Mossey’ to be the forerunner of the A10, but it was a little fast for infantry support.
An other well known attack was the attack on the Gestapo headquarter in The "Shell house" in Copenhagen, Denmark.
My mother was in her parents apartment on the fourth floor on "Strandboulrvarden" (The beach boulevard").
I In order to avoid German anti-aircraft guns they flew along the street, so low that my mother could see the pilot in the cockpit trough the window! Unfortunately the French school was hit by an accident and lots of children died.
The Hawker Hurricane is made mostly made of wood and canvas
I'm from the USA and I must say the British aircraft are quite impressive, Thanks for the video.
What a fantastic thing for this adorable young man to achieve! The Mosquito is one of my favorite WWII British aircraft. Two Merlins! What's not to like? Damn! He got to interview Eric Brown! He's such a cutie, too! Great video. Thanks for posting.
He's so excited and so overwhelmed that he cries with joy and can't look at the camera. That is so charming! To want something so badly as he does for so long and not only get to ride in his lifetime favorite aircraft, but get to put his hands on the controls and actually fly thing has to be overwhelming. Bless him. You can't feel sorry for him because he's clearly never be ket his disability stop him. He deserves only admiration. Interesting that another Brit with a disability was quite famous, Douglas Baderm, who lost his legs in an air crash. He had tin legs, got back in the pilot's seat and flew Hurricanes or Spitfires during the Battle of Britain in 1940. He was shot down over France, imprisoned and escaped from a German POW prison!
He's adorable! OMG! I've developed a crush! I want to hug him and give him a kiss on his forehead! He's so sweet!
Read the book Night Fighter by C.F.Rawnsley. He was the radar officer and had to reload the cannons in the dark while making turns. They shot down 26 German planes at night. A very good book and well detailed of each mission. He was lucky to survive.
I should add it was 26 German bombers and fighter bombers. The radar equipped Mossies weren’t allowed to cross the European coast until late in the war, their radar was secret. Once turned loose over the continent, they had more “customers,” usually German night fighters. One Mossie crew downed four Germans during a single flight.
the design probably sounded impossible to most and that is what is great about it because it made the impossible possible and helped defeat the enemy in many ways along with Hurricanes, Spitfires, Lancasters, Wellingtons, et al.
@Brian Roome P38 Copy? The P38 was different in design compared to the Mosquito. The P38 was the most unique of all WW2 aircraft. Both love the aircraft (Mosquito and the P-38 Lightning).But I guess based on your comment you are probably an employee or employer of Beechcraft and several US companies who loathed the Mosquito in 1940.
No doubt the mosquito was one of the most successful aircraft of WW2
How could any aviation enthusiast of WWII forget the Mossie?
Thank you for your service! From the United States of America 🇺🇸
In South Africa we have one of these Mosquito's in the Museum for Military History in Johannesburg.
Cool airplanes i was hooked after 633 squadron movie in the 70's. thanks
Really enjoyed it and felt the love you have for aviation and particularly this aircraft. Good job!
Plywood at that....almost as much of the weight was adhesive as wood.
Many of the "shadow manufacturers" were furniture and piano builders.
Great video series thanks for putting this together!
About 20,000 Spitfires were made during the war.
14,583 Hurricanes were made from 1937-1944.
3,317 Typhoons were made (1941-1945.)
And about 7,781 Mosquitoes were made during the war and after (1940-1950).
But somehow the author thinks it was the Mosquito that 'saved' Britain.
No... If I had to judge (I'm a Texican.. as in Texas) I'd say it was split between the Hurricanes and the Spitfires. They stopped the Germans from invading by denying the Germans control of the air. And, of course, the Radar network did heap work in guiding them to the fight.
Sounds correct
Mosquito wood construction was nearly Invisible to radar, high speed and long range allowed critical missions that had greater impact than other sorties.
I would argue that they made so many Spitfire/Hurricane because those got shot down more commonly. The Mosquito was/is largely overlooked (imho) because its not as sexy looking as the other more well known fighters.
Deaf Smith - no one plane saved Britain, Hitler thinking he knew better than his generals saved Britain. Once the invasion was cancelled, and Germany focused on Russia, British industry had a chance to regroup and churned out new models of spitfires which were more than a match for the new Me 109 and Fw 190’s, Hurricanes, Mosquitos, Typhoons and Lancaster’s hammered the Germans on the ground, at sea and in the air day and night in ground attack, bombing, and hit/run raids as Germany reconfigured older, slower and less manoeuvrable aircraft like Me 110’s, Do-17’s and Ju-87 and 88’s into other roles like night fighters and ground attack aircraft because they became fodder for the increasingly frequent British fighter sweeps while Spitfire and Mosquito Recon aircraft ranged freely due to their speed and altitude. So many other aircraft of the time became iconic like the Beaufighter, Tempest, Blenheim, Barracuda, Swordfish and so on. You could probably argue that towards 1943-44 British aircraft were superior to axis aircraft in nearly every role you could think of.
Deaf Smith Correct sir, first issue of concern was diminish the Nazi domination of the skies, hence good fighters (Hurricanes & Spits) and Radar was a big bonus!
The first time I saw a mosquito I was instantly drawn to it. Without knowing it was made mostly of wood. That fact made me even more in awe of this beauty. It’s still one of the most eye catching planes ever made in my opinion.
My Gramps flew DH-98's in the RCAF getting ready to go to Japan.
Hunted U-Boats out of Gander in BR-10 Squadron in the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans before that.
A very deadly occupation in 1941-42.
gary gibbs My dad was trained to operate the AI Radar in the night-fighter variant. OTU course ended around VE-DAY and he was repatriated to Canada expecting to end up fighting the Japanese. This ended with VJ-DAY and he was demobbed. The RCAF sent him to UofT to study Mechanical Engineering and he re-entered the RCAF in 49 and wound up in the party that opened Gimli, MacDonald and Portage for jet flying training on the T-33. Graduates went on to fly the Canadair Sabre or Avro CF-100 as part of Canada's "Big Air Force" contribution to NATO and NORAD. Dad went on to train electronics and radar techs to man the DEW and Pinetree Radar lines. The CF-100 was a lot like the night fighter Mosquito, only faster, higher, longer range.
CANUSA Kommando iiï9yu
Respect!
The one plane that does look as "right" as the Mosquito is the Spitfire - the Mosquito is a twin engined Spitfire with two Rolls Royce Merlin Engines and similar broad wings
I had disabled friend that wanted to experience more mobility, so I introduced him to scuba diving! You can fly over mountains without an airplane! Try it, it's easy with buoyancy compensators! If your worrying about not enough air, problems with diving is too much air!
Totally incredible plane and the way you explained different thing's on these plane's ..great design of this plane too..you did an amazing job on this video too...I do greatly appreciate your videos too..Thank you so so much..
Panzer General. Mosquito was always my go to in the game.
More power to you..,always follow your passion
That heritage center DOES look like a boneyard. Wish they could get those aircraft under shelter.
I’ve loved the look of this airplane ever since I saw a photograph of one. I never thought I would ever see a real one. When I finally did, it was a static display (at the time) at Canada’s Aviation Museum in Ottawa. Shed a tear that day. I learned there were people restoring these airplanes not more than 30 minutes away by plane ride, near Victoria, BC. One day I saw one flying over the Straights of Juan de Fuca, assumably during a test flight. The sound was surreal. Amazing sight.
I wonder about the Mosquito's Merlin engine stalls. I'm told that at the outset of the war, the Germans quickly realized that if they could attack from above and drive a Spitfire into a dive, the float attitude would result in a flooded carb and the Spit pilot would be unable to restart the engine.
In short order, an engineer, a woman, designed a restrictor which limited carb flooding and almost immediate restarts became possible. Why was this not so with the Mosquito? I know there were countless versions of the Merlin over time, but the restrictor was a fairly early mod.
I regret that in old age I've forgotten the engineer's name, but I believe her invention did a heck of a lot to save Britain and eventually win the war.
Beatrice Shilling.
@@SpyGeorgilis Thanks
PBS has a podcast called "Spitfire: The People's Plane". 1 of it's 10 or 11 episodes focused on her story. Great series, well worth checking out.
One of my favorite aircraft of all time, it was terrible that more mosquitoes were Not saved. Send those puppies to Arizona, they'll keep forever
*Wooden Aircraft don't age well*
@@Ford_Raptor_R_720hp_V8 Especially when they were used as target practice.
The most successful aircraft of WW2 is without a question the hawker hurricane if you look at sertisticks the Hawker Hurricane has shot down more enemy aircraft than any other plane to-date
Thank you. Just found your vlog and love it. Subscribed. All the best, cheers.
DH mosquito was a really great plane, but it was only one of many things that saved GB
There is a flying one in New Zealand.
DeHavilland Mosquito; Best of the Breed
At 19:51 . . . The narrator is shown flying his own plane. Since he had been previously shown sitting in a wheelchair with his legs paralyzed, his plane must have specialized hand controls for the rudder, since he would not be able to operate normal rudder pedals
KA114 was not restored in NZ, it was built from scratch using jigs copied from the remains of a fuselage found on a Canadian farm.
There is a dismantled but complete WWII Mosquito in the City Archives warehouse in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It's been there for many years, quite well preserved. Only in recent years has the privately-funded Aviation Museum at the former Edmonton Municipal Airport (XD; IATA: YXD, ICAO: CYXD) grown large enough that its reassembly and restoration may be in the cards. For this Mossie to be restored, perhaps even to flying condition, would be a fitting tribute, alongside the other aircraft that are very important to Canadian aviation history.
Jim Baritone HI there. The de Havilland Mosquito that you speak of is currently stored in the Alberta Aviation Museum in Edmonton, site of the former Municipal Air port. She is a former Spartan Air Services " Mossie". The restoration was static for display only, and took place during the early to mid 1980s. I had the pleasure of visiting the museum last summer, and the Mossie " wears the uniform of RCAF 418 " City Of Edmonton " Squadron. The nose art is that of HairLess Joe. Driver Russ Bannock, Conductor F/O Bruce RAF. It was quite a thrill to see a " Mossie " up close. No. 418 was one six " Mossie " units the RCAF fielded, and was the one to be in the " Intruder " role, and holds a number of distinctions. One of which is the top scoring RCAF unit of the War. Cheers.
Arrow B Flight. Thank you very much for the update. I am an Edmontonian born and raised, and my dad was a F/O in the RCAF, and flew night fighters, both Beaufighters and Mosquitos for most of WWII. Sadly, he died at quite a young age, probably from flying unpressurized aircraft at very high altitiude while doing "intruder" work (or so the verdict went). I have his logs, and (surprisingly) his Navigator/AI op is still alive and very chipper. I believe he'll be 101 this year. I hope to visit him at his home in England this year.
In my own life, a combination of factors - the death of the city archivist I knew, for many years plus some other sad happenings in my own family, made me lose touch with the current state of that particular Mossie. My father, a Mossie night fighter pilot, knew Russ Bannock, and I'm sure they met after the war. I may have met him when I was much younger, but to be honest I can't remember.
I'm ashamed to admit I have not been to the Aviation Museum on Kingsway and 116th for a number of years, although I go past it quite often. The final "odd" part of this is that I served in 418 Sqdn. while in the RCAF reserves, when it was based in Edmonton. Among my other contributions to the defense of the Realm, I played clarinet in the Squadron band. I'm sure Her Majesty was suitably grateful:-) That's back quite a while now - reading what I've just written, and remembering the things you mention, makes me feel like I'm getting a bit long in the tooth. Thanks ever so much for the updated information. I have had only a small percentage of normal vision in my right eye and none in my left for the last two years. I had surgery some weeks ago, the result of which is that (I hope) that problem will be recified, and I'll be able to start getting out to see these things once again. Cheers from River City!
Jim Baritone Good evening Jim It is a small world. It just so happens that my sister also served with
No. 418 Air Reserve for a number of years. At present, she volunteers at the museum. She is interested
in meeting you. If you drop in on Tuesday before lunch, ask the cashier to call Linda from the Sqdn room.
Good luck with your health, i do hope things turn for the better for you. Also, i do hope your able to make
it to England and meet up with your Dad's Nav / AI Op. I can well imagine the stories of the adventures
they shared will warm your heart. Cheers.
Just typed a reply, hit the wrong key, and wiped out the lot! Typical!. Anyhow, I will make a point of visiting the Museum on a Tuesday before lunch time as soon as possible, and I'll ask for Linda. I don't know if it will turn out we've ever met, but stranger things have happened!
By good luck (and no doubt some quiet words with the officals who assigned crews), my dad and Charles stayed as a crew for almost the entire war. This is quite unusual, I'm told, but somehow they remained a team. Possibly success or continued survival were factors. Charles has told me a number of stories of my fathers piloting, both of the Beau and of the Mossie, and to be honest some of them speak to very good luck, as well as his skill as a pilot. This includes one about a "no-fuel-engines-out" landing in the top of a large oak tree. My dad, after the random crunching noises had stopped, was apparently quite sanguine about the whole business, and suggested they'd best climb down the tree and go and find some hot cocoa. As they say, "any landing you walk away from ...."
He never spoke about flying on ops, but just a few years ago, after my mothers death, I found a very dusty box in the back of a cupboard in her house, and in that there was a stack of coil-bound excercise books - about 40 in all - and they are a daily diary written by my father - there's an entry for almost every day of his wartime service, from flight school and his first solo right through to where they were supposed to be preparing to go to the Pacific. Unlike his log books, the entries of which are pretty thin, his diaries are very, very detailed. How he managed to write and keep them, since keeping diaries was strictly against RCAF and RAF regs, I've no idea. But they've been a real eye-opener - he died in 1989, and I uncovered them only in 2016. Charles has told me several stories when visiting here, and on my one previous visit to England in 1992. It's not so much a question of the stories being hard to believe (and some are), it's that there's no context. I have taken my time going through the diaries, especially as I was without vision for an extended period. But they're an amazing account. I'll have a lot to talk over with Charles when I visit him later in the year! Thank you for your reply, and all of the information. Greetings from River City!
This is really really good. Great host.
It should be awesome to depict all those adventures that the RAF pilots lived flying Mosquitos in videos like the History Channel's series "Dogfights".
Though the Mosquito was undeniably a fantastic light attack aircraft and significant jack-of-all trades it certainly was not the "Plane that Saved Britain". Nor does that honor go to that beautiful and quintessential dogfighter, the Spitfire. The Plane that Saved Britain was the never been kissed ugly step-sister, Sydney Camm's redoubtable Hawker Hurricane. Well done, old girl.
Correct- thank you. BTW, a Spit aficianado said that great as it was, his main love, its carburetor lost dogfighting capability in a forward dive whereas the fuel-injection 109 had no problem in this, giving it an advantage. So why did Goering wish he had Spits?
@@RalphPhilbrook It was Galland who asked Goering for Spitfires.
@@RalphPhilbrook In his book, "Die Ersten und Der Letzten", Galland explains that though he did not actually prefer the Spitfire to his beloved Me-109, he did feel it was a better defensive fighter and Goering had just berated his fighter commanders for not staying close enough to the bombers to defend them properly (in the bomber commanders' opinions), thus tying them to a soley defensive mode. He even hinted at cowardice. This greatly angered the fighter commanders and Galland, never one to mince words, when asked what he needed to do the job, made his famous (sarcastic) reply, "Give me a squadron of Spitfires". BTW, I highly recommend Galland's book. No politics or nationalism. Just plain facts and the story of the Luftwaffe from Germany's General of Fighters.
Rikki0 : Right-on 100%!
@@RalphPhilbrook Believe it was Adolf Galland that said he wanted a squadron of Spits, not Goering, but Goering was the recipient of the message. The carb. problem was worked on and corrected after the battle. It did not lose its dog fighting capability. As the carb float rose in a steep dive, a quick rollover corrected the problem, but still it was not helpful and a distraction.The Spitfire could out turn the 109 and was slightly faster at altitudes where most of the fighting took place, 10-18000 feet. The Luftwaffe pilots became somewhat intimidated when they saw a squadron of Spits heading towards them, because of continual 109 losses. Plus radar was guiding the RAF fighters, not so for the 109s. And finally the 109 pilots had the extra burden of trying to protect the Messerschmidt 210 "Destroyer" that the Hurricanes were assigned to take out. These are some of the reasons why the Spitfire received the term "Legendary."
Would not the plane that 'saved Britain' have been the Spitfire, or, by actual most number of enemy shot down, the Hurricane? There is little reference to the mosquito during the Battle of Britain, which was the battle which actually saved Britain (perhaps because it wasn't in service until that battle was over).
True, true, true, however the lack of ‘seasoned’ pilots in the RAF was a huge problem (many pilots had less than 10-15hrs flight time), thank the Polish squadrons & their experience.
Very strange picture disturbances here. The picture warps and "waggles" very strangely. Irritating.
A remarkable, iconic aircraft, almost infinitely adaptable.
But hardly THE plane that saved Britain. Spitfire, Hurricane, Wellington, Lancaster and many others deserve that accolade.
Wooden planes also would not show up on the older radar of the day, that used VHF as the parts of the plane that were metal were small enough compared to the wavelength that they would not be seen.
I won’t forget her! And I live near Hatfield in USA! She’s the meaning of Speed Kills!
i had a relative who graduated from the empire air training scheme in canada.he told me that the aircraft that everyone wanted to fly was the mosquito.
How well-regarded was the mosquito? Well, let's put it this way: The Germans demanded a similar plane was designed and they indeed tried. It resulted in the Focke-Wulf Ta 154 - designed by the legendary Kurt Tank - and it was even named "Moskito".
It never became a success, partly due to the fact that the glue required to build this - also - plywood aircraft was barely available as the factories making it were bombed out by the allies
While no one denies the Mosquito was a good, high performance combat aircraft, it was not the plane that saved Britain.
The Bristol Beaufighter entered service as a night fighter at least a year before the Mosquito. It deserves more credit for the night defence of Britain during the time during the latter part of the Blitz of 1940, and was more heavily armed than the Mosquito.
During the 1940 battle of Britain, the Spitfire and the Hurricane did more to save Britain than the Mosquito ever did.
While the Mosquito served as high speed photographic reconnaissance, light bomber, night fighter, and fighter bomber/anti-shipping, it was not the very best at any of them.
The Lockheed Lightning PR versions were able to fly faster and higher, and were more maneuverable.
The Bristol Beaufighter was far more versatile as a fighter-bomber and as an anti-shipping aircraft than the Mosquito. For the record, even the Lightning, Mustang, Thunderbolt, and the Ju 88 were all equal to or better than the Mosquito in these roles.
While it was an excellent night fighter, it could not compare to the Heinkel He 219.
To be clear, although the Mosquito was a valuable addition to the squadrons of the RAF, it was never able to claim to be as good as its rabid fans make it out to be, and most definitely was not the plane that saved Britain.
If memory serves me correctly Canada made over 7100 Mosquitos.
Canada, our good neighbor to the north, has made cars, aircraft and many other things for the U.S. too.
Peter Montagnon 1134 Mosquito's were constructed in Canada. The fuselage by
G.M. of Canada, Massey Ferguson - wings, Canada Power Boat - flaps, Otaco did
the under carriage, and Boeing ( U.S.A ) assembled the tail planes. oh, i almost
left out the birch veneer to skin the wings came from wood lots in New Brunswick.
From what I have read , the Mossie could be a bit dicey with a single engine landing. Post war RAF pilots had to practice asymmetric landings , after so many fatal crashes the policy was stopped. Not being a pilot this explanation could be BS . But increasing power to the live engine too forcibly would cause a flick roll . The great Night Fighter Ace and test pilot John Cunningham's dictum was extra speed , his thinking better to walk away from a crash at the far end of a runway , then to be dug out at the beginning.
No airplane saved England. The Mosquito was an exceptional aircraft. It has not become all but forgotten. Let's keep it real.
Actually the narrative is mistaken about the hundreds of little workshops all across Britain.My father and his brothers had started a furniture business in Leyton in Eastern London in the nineteen twenties and thirties. In wartime they were provided by the government with large scale machinery for essentially engineering in timber and they mass-produce mosquitoes I have no doubt the other large scale manufacturers of furniture were pressed into the same service
PLEASE, please CUT OUT the USELESS "MUSIC", and let us clearily listem to dialogs, comments and A/C real SOUND!!!
NO music, it IS spoilling such A GOOD video!!!!
CUT IT OUT!!!!!!
A Rodrigues if this was created for tv or cable it is going to have a sound track. Your problem is your watching it on RUclips. Compression does all kinds of things to the sound. If it bothered you that much pay for it on iTunes or another service and get real nice sound. But your a cheap bastard and you watch it here and. O plain about the compressed sound.
Probably goes down well with a Merkin audience but it's a bit annoying to have a British documentary done this way.
While the Mossie was an awesome plane, it's a disservice to it and the other RAF fighters, during WWII, to label it as a savior. Without question, Britain and Fighter Command were on their knees during the summer of 1940 and the aircraft that fought the Luftwaffe were the Hurricane and the Spitfire. Their efforts, combined with psychotic German strategy, lead to Britain's survival.
Paladin
Also the way the british rested their piolts by moving them in and out of the zone of heavy action.
The Germans failed to do this and so gradually lost their experienced piolets.
Paladin 06 Agree 100%, 1940 was a bad time for the RAF, lack of seasoned pilots was a real issue, thank God for the Polish squadrons, they were real champs!
If you're waiting on the Brits, you're backing up. So many brilliant ideas/improvements in technology during WWII.
Uh, the Mosquito was built at what is now YYZ (Pearson International - Toronto). If you go to the first main hall of the "International Centre" where all the car shows are, etc. That was the building they built them in.
Some were built in Canada, some in Australia as well. See the Wiki article for exact production figures.
Sorry, but they are fast becoming one. Inbreading and all that y'know.
Drew Jacques they were manufacdtured in Australia too
@@TheTheotherfoot And yet more people move to the U.S. than the U.K. In fact in recent years tens of thousands of your wealthy have left the U.K. to get away from it.
@@Dios67 So . . ?
Ask Douglas Bader how he flew without legs!
Well, your quite a guy. Ww2 aircraft have all ways intrigued me.
The plane that saved Britain? Jeez, don't tell the Spitfire nutters.
Very nice videos but the title is wrong, the Mosquito was not the plane that saved Britain. Spitfire an Huracanes were the planes that really saved Britain during the battle of England.
great documentary, it's just that the tracking of everything makes it very shakey
The attack in 43 was doomed a failure - twelve bomgs dropped, 5 didn't explode, an only tree hit the building, but went strait thrue an did't do much damage. Six civillan killed an two germans - none gestapo personell. The bombing did not affect the daily routina at the HQ! The falsifiet report on the missions sucsess was written by Sq. leader George Parry and it did not leave him much honour. One of the mosquitos was shot down by two focke wulf 190 and ende in th Enger-water. Flight Sergeant Gordon Carter og Sergeant William Young died there. The rest (3) returned to Sumburgh Head. In all it was a dumb and meaningless attemp!
Then the Royal Air Force sendt 12 mosquito bombers to Oslo, at new years ev in 1944 - none of the bombs hit the target. Six of the planes didn't drop their bombs because of the fire-smog made from the six first planes. Several civillian buildings and on trolly-bus destroyed, 113 people killed, of 84 was sivilian! Get your facts in order and don't blindly trust the british propaganda!
When they bombed Serbia in 1944. they killed more people then Germans in 1941.Only on Ortodox Easter 16.-17.april 1944,British and American airforces even managed to hit the maternity hospital in Belgrad and to kill several newborn babies and their mothers.From april to september just Belgrade was bombed 11 times.In Podgorica,1/6 population were killed.Over 25 cities were bombed,many few times,and very often places with no importance for war effort...Somehow when they do it than it is KIND bombing,but when for example Russians bomb someone,then it is "savage bombardment".
@@zutabrada6956 that was always the normal. But the winners always write the history to their own liking. The bombing of Dresten was a genoside - the city had absolutly no military value. No strategical ore other value!
@@kraagaard Agree.But moral high ground ecoing from these shows is just disturbing,at least for me.Hipocrisy is iritating.Also when they are sorry for the Poland,but Chechoslovakia,exactly year earlier has been given to the nacis,by British
Wonderful film.
One of my favorite planes but wow... "It was largely thanks to the mosquito that the RAF destroyed Germany's great industrial centers". Amazing! I thought it was an Allied effort but apparently the RAF did it alone, with the help of the Mosquito. Well I'm sure the non-RAF pilots that died over Germany won't mind being omitted.
How exactly is the Mosquito obscure?
Most people, the average person, don't know about it, especially since it is in almost no air shows. They'll have heard of the SPitfire and Hurricane, B-17, and the Mustang, and that's about it.
Great Video on the Mosquito !
er scuse me ...the Hurricane assisted by the Spitfire saved Britain . later , The :"Mossie " was fantastic though . When I was about 10 , my friend Brian and I were digging a hole for our latest underground bunker , we found a small shell ...live ... we showed it to his Dad who was an ex "desert rat" , it was a 20 mm cannon shell from a Mossie , we lived about 1k from the channel on the south coast of England so not surprising ,,,his dad would not let us keep the shell ...he called the police ...misery...
By the end of 2016 there were again 3 restored Mosquitos... A whole aircraft made from wood, except the few important parts, good that it entered war quite late? or could it absorb some rounds or even flak fire?
The sad thing is there used to be a factory up the road from me that built wings for the Mosquito typical of the local authority history means nothing and it was flattened to make way for a housing estate
The attack on the "Victoria-building" in Oslo was a failure, the bombs mostely missed and failed to kill a single Gestapo member, in hindsight its overshadowed by the second attack on the buiding in 1944 in wich the RAF leveled a city block and strafed and bombed a tram......With only the Victoria-building left untouched. It was the worst blow for the british in the proganda war aimed at Norwegians.
UGLEIV in holland they once flew thrue the streets and bombed a officer party
That what I heard many, many years ago
De Havilland official documentary is great, add link !
Why all the background noise. Diffucult to hear what is been said
Well hay Skipper you where in the Royal Marines so you are no piker and you have overcome a situation that would put most men in the ground . If you ever make it to Alaska I'm wanting to take you out for a pint and maybe we can go fishing. And you can fly my old Otter she isn't a Mossy but it's still got that feeling and I'm 73 but me and my old bird can still do a barrel roll with my floats on at 100 feet and 120 indicated
I might stack her up one day but we aren't living in the hanger
The Spitfire saved Britain.
No. The Hawker Hurricane saved Britain.
Like this video but the music is really annoying. Wtf must every video have music ? Why not silence, voices and roaring engines.
Mossie also flew 8th AF weather and photo recon....nothing else had it's speed/altitude advantage or range.
Outstanding documentary. The only handicap that a person on this earth can really have in to "not know Jesus", Amen?
At 11:10 is that right engine propeller not turning or just could be for the prototype testing. .!
Saved Britain? Man I dislike click bait titles. Turns me away from what might be a pretty good vid.
The Spitfire ?