Originally Posted by
pax britanica
My grand parents lived at Croxley Green in Herts and I used to spend quite bit of the summer with them in the early 60s ,not sure exactly which year, and was privileged to see a whole gaggle of Mosquitos fly over just north of us and failry low ( One of the LHR SIDS which they didnt have back then butt he routing was much the same , passed over the Watford area ) on their way back to Bovingdon where much of 633 squadron was filmed . This went one for a week or more, a wonderful sight and even more wonderful sound !! .
I have never seen a Mossie flying since then and perhaps never will but always thought it was a wonderful aircraft a sort of 1940s Tornado /F 18 multi role concept jack or all trades and pretty much master of them too. I suppose their rarity is due to the fact they longevity doesn't matter much in war time and the potential structural issues didn't matter as the aircraft wasnt going to be around for the life times of todays military aircraft. Also as far as I know from reading they didnt exactly have benign handling characteristics with an engine out and if you were unlucky and this happened at critical points on take off , approach or go around you were dead. So flyting aircraft that are in part 75 years seems quite high risk business just to show off an admittedly wonderful aircraft.
The Mosquito had a number of other issues besides delamination and Glue problems it was indeed difficult to fly if one of these issues cropped up inflight especially those learning at OTU's, looking at 13(not a good number) OTU based at what is now Teesside Airport just after War ended the accident rate is quite high (mind you not as high as flying the Meteor out of the same Airfield), an earlier accident with a Mosquito is highlighted in the Graveyard at the little Church to the South of the Airfield Perimeter Fence where a F/L lies buried, the Son of the local Coalmerchant but Instructing in Canada at the time flew his Mosquito into one of the few clouds and the tail snapped off.