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Old 8th Aug 2006, 06:38
  #73 (permalink)  
aviate1138
 
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Originally Posted by pulse1
I think that at least one flying Mosquito was used for the film. It was owned by the City of Liverpool and I met the pilot just after the film was made. He was FO on a Viscount at the time and, during a stopover at Liverpool, he wandered into a hangar to look around and came across the Mosquito. Asked if he thought he could fly it he said that he could and ended up flying it for the film.
Neil Williams flew the Speke Mosquito [B.35 I think] down to Bovingdon. He felt something was not right with the elevators after having taken off, decided that as Doug Bianchi and the Mosquito Engineers were down at Bovingdon/Hatfield, he would carry on. After landing he told Doug about the problem. Doug opened the fuselage maintainence panel [starboard side ahead of the tailplane] grabbed a flashlight and peered inside. He emerged ashen faced.
The elevator cable run had been somehow splashed with battery acid and there were only a few strands intact!
http://www.mossie.org/images/W4050/ajd_d19_34.jpg
This hatch but on the B.35 not the prototype. The other variant used was the T.III from De Havillands - Pat Fillingham flew that one.
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