glojo

Just looking at this picture allows me to hear the roar of those engines. What a beautiful iconic aircraft. Thank you for starting the thread and thank you to all those that have posted their pictures. What a pity it will not be gracing our skies.

Out Of Trim

What a fabulous restoration / almost new build!

Very impressive engineering to get to that standard.


Please continue the fine work. Would love to see one of these flying in the UK again!

Samuel

Once more...with feeling!

500N

Isn't that a sound and a half to hear and a sight to warm the heart

You can just imagine Flying low and very fast towards Amiens.

Yamagata ken

Hmmm. A Mosquito, a Spitfire and a Mustang. Life doesn't get much better than that (well maybe a Fury too), thank you New Zealand.

My brother lives in Cambridge. Out in his back garden for a smoke, I heard something coming. That's not a Cessna, I thought. It wasn't. It was a Spitfire, wide open throttle and low level. Thank you Duxford.

Mandator

The team at Avspecs and all those involved in putting the new Mosquito back in the air have received richly-deserved praise. However, in watching all those YouTube clips of the event last weekend, a shudder went up my spine.

With no more than a couple of hours on the clock, and presumably with a pilot with only a couple of hours currency on type, the Mosquito was 'wrung out' in front of the paying public. From what I could see the crowd line appeared to be breached and one or two manoeuvres looked distinctly on the limit. It looked to me like we were heading in the direction of another disaster like Farnborough in 1952.

What has been achieved in Kiwiland is nothing short of magnificent - I just hope the euphoria does not lead to something bad.

Standing by to be flamed .......................

500N

Mandator

I did wonder that myself as well.


Or did they do some other "test" flying to make sure all was OK
before the actual show ?

.

seafuryfan

I've read that the Mosquito had 4-5 hours on the clock at the time of the display. With memories of the Barton engine cut accident to RR299, I watched the display carefully from the clips. The flypasts were, from what I can see, in a generally flat plane, with no obvious wing-overs. I'm confident (but not certain) that the very experienced and trusted pilot will have seen on the web the accident that befell RR299. Let's hope so.

I can't dispute an element of crowd fly-over though (VIP enclosure?), even though it was to the delight of a Mossie nav who was part of it.

India Four Two

I've been following the weekend's events by proxy and been looking at the stunning photos and videos.

My favourite is this one - two DH wooden fighters in formation:


It is particularly special for me, because I've had a flight in that T11.

This YouTube video is the best that I've seen so far, and there is a fly-by of the Mossie and Vampire at 6:55. The two Merlins and Goblin make a wonderful sound:

Samuel

Correct! All, or most of the photos that have been posted here are of the displays on Saturday, but the aircraft was flown extensively on the previous Thursday. The preparation for this event was meticulous, as you might expect from two pilots who are very experienced. The Test pilot on the day was Keith Skilling, ex-RNZAF, and ANZ, who has many years, decades in fact, of warbird flying in his log book, including Corsair, Kittyhawk and Spitfire. He will have tens of thousands of hours in his log book! The accompanying pilot is Dave Phillips, also ex-RNZAF and 30 -odd years with ANZ who owns and displays a Tiger Moth and a Hunter, and test-flew the Anson.

I don't know how, other than through the vast experience of such pilots, one "would gain currency on type" when there are no other examples of the type flying!

India Four Two

Samuel,

I saw Dave Phillips test-fly and subsequently display the Hunter at Tauranga in February. Spectacular of course, but his Tiger Moth display was incomparable. His low-level aerobatics in such a draggy and low-powered aircraft showed consummate skills and airmanship.

Do you know who was flying Doug Brooker's two-seat Spitfire?

GeeRam

No vertical maneoveres were permitted for the display, with so few hours of pre-display testing.

However, as to the higher energy flying, that's to be commended really given the handling characteristics of the Mosquito.

It's worth reminding of what that late, great TP, Neil Williams said once in reply to being asked to fly an air-air photo with a him flying a Mossie B.35 and being photo'd from a Piper Comanche.

Neil asked if the Twin Comanche would do 200kts. The Piper pilot said no, why?
Neil responded that he would never fly a Mosquito at less than 200 kts once airborne.

aviate1138

samuel
"I don't know how, other than through the vast experience of such pilots, one "would gain currency on type" when there are no other examples of the type flying!"

Slight thread drift here but what about all those wartime girls that flew the very latest war machines for the very first time using just the ATA pilots handling notes and nothing else????

Like Joan Hughes, Anne Welch, Monique Agazatian and so many others.

Back to the Mosquito

Samuel

I did notice that characteristic of all the displays on Saturday, and in fact commented to that effect, that the Mosquito didn't seem to go anywhere slowly.

Runaway Gun

200kts - That's a pretty fast touchdown speed

MG

So what are the handling characteristics of the Mossie that mean they wouldn't want to venture below 200kts?
They had to be no faster than 240kts at Amiens in order to drop their 500lb bombs, otherwise the cases would have cracked.

Cleared-HOT

Gavin Trethewey was flying Dougs Spitfire on the weekend. Liz was flying the P40 and Graham Bethell flying the Mustang.

The Mossie did about five flights before the airshow and during that time both Dave and Keith flew it, with Wal Denholm from AvSpecs in the Nav seat monitoring all the instruments. They had a specific test sheet of stuff they wanted to progress through and during the previous flights had expanded the speed envelope to just over 300mph.

When Keith was flying his pass was at 300mph and no more. They plan on expanding the speed envelope to VNE but aircraft will be displayed at 300mph max. As well as the CAA guy who has been in AvSpecs hangar all along being at the show there were a number of other CAA people there who were happy with what Keith had planned.

There was only one instance of where Keith overflew the crowd line and that was on his first display but all left to right and right to left passes came nowhere close to going over the crowd. Had there been an issue the CAA would have made their voice known.

The Mossie is doing a few more flights over the next week or two and then will be shipped to VA for Jerry to enjoy.

For the air to air shoot they will be doing this above 185 as Dave Phillips said if one engine quits they have to be 180 or above to still have good control.

CH

Jhieminga

Vmca is in the region of 180kts, which means that with an engine failure below that speed you will not be able to keep it going straight, unless you pull back the throttle on the other (operative) engine.

Edit: just noticed that the question was already answered in the previous post, my bad..

Cleared-HOT

The best thing about this is that Wal still has yet another Mosquito sitting in the hangar to do and Glynn Powell has his one to finish as well, so that means total of 3 flying Mosquitos to come out of Kiwiland

Roland Pulfrew

I knew this was happening but had missed the pictures and videos; My God that is a thing of absolute beauty.

I think I need to start doing the Euromillions; I would like one please