Weather flights.
 

Were their Mosquitos at Woodvale in 1960 .Doing weather flights?

Probably 10 years or so ago, but Jerry Yagens brought some of his collection to the Hamilton, Ontario airshow (CYHM). His Mosquito flew in formation with the Warplane Heritage Lancaster, as well as a Spitfire and Hurricane - a fantastic sight. Then something I thought I’d never see, his ME 262 and FW190 fired up and did a fly-by with the Lanc, Spit, Mossie and Hurricane. I’ll rummage around and find some photos to upload here.

Yup, a few Mossies replaced the Spitfire XIXs with the Temperature and Humidity Flight at Woodvale. The last three Spits went on to form what became the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight in 1957 and the Mosquitoes were with the flight until 1959. The Mossie in the RAF Museum at Hendon is one of them.

Yep, TJ138 is the only one of the six TT.35's used by the THUM Flight that has survived.

The 5 others were RR719, TK604, TA641, TA722 & VR806.

633 was fiction, the RAF never had a sqn with that number. The army had and still has several sqns in the general series (some were glider towing units) in the Far East and others AOP units.

It is interesting to trace the sqn numbers still in use with some of our NATO allies and to find these started life as units operated from UK in the last war and often manned by Dutch, Norwegian and Danish crews. Many of the Canadian 400 series sqns started that way and 75 sqn was gifted to New Zealand at the war's end.

Lengthy story - but not now!!!

Old Duffer

It had a Volunteer Gliding Squadron with that number. A splendid outfit, based at Cosford for many years. Not that I'm biased...

A sad one from Down Under. NZ buy of Mossies post war.
FB.VI TE 748 on delivery flight crashed for reasons unknown on Sydney Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria
Pilot was WCmdr B R Hoare DSO and Bar, DFC and Bar. Navigator was FO J Colvin of London.
Reading up on Hoare, what an amazing WW2 story of dash and daring. And having survived all that, a ferry flight did what the Germans tried to do for years !
A propellor from this aircraft makes a monument to these two gentlemen at Mornington Island in the Gulf.

Flew into the ground trying to make visual in crap weather or some other problem.? We shall never know.
RIP.

My one and only Mosquito enchantment? was at Exeter 1960 or 61 Two Target Towers tucked in tight as, bored down the runway and split left and right in the pull up. 4 Merlins in full song
what symphony of sound, what aerial grace..Never to be forgotten. never bettered.

We were 'buzzed' at very low level by a lone Mosquito while we were sailing on Loch Morlich in 1963? cannot remember exact date. A fantastic sight to behold. They were filming 633 squadron in the Cairngorms using 3 Mosquitos. Those Merlins were a fantastic sound as it roared overhead and very close!

Edit! I cant post link for Loch Morlich for some reason. Just google it to see live webcam and Cairngorms in the background where the filming took place.

As Treadigraph alluded to above, there are two Mosquito projects in the UK:

1) The Peoples Mosquito
This is a new build based around RL249's dataplate, being built in the UK by Guy Black's Retrotec.
They are producing new fuz moulds - rather odd considering there's a set in NZ...
They also have all of NZ company's jigs and tools for the wings.
and
2) The Mosquito Pathfinders Trust
This is partially complete airframe NZ2308 residing in New Zealand at Avspec, the funding will complete the restoration/build and the services of ARCO to deal with the UK CAA to enable operation in the UK

In a way it's a shame that they are competing for the same donations - it might result in neither getting to the end...

I did my RAF flying scholarship with the Exeter Aero Club in Tiger Moth G-ANOR in 1959. At that time, 3 CAACU Squadron was based there towing targets for the army. The sound and sight of Mosquitoes taking off and landing remains vivid in my memory. I tried to hitch a ride in one but, as to be expected, no luck! What a magnificent aircraft.

During the war. Ninthace Senior was sent across the pond to do his flying training prior to ending up driving Catalinas for a living. He told me the tale that, while at Pensacola, they had a display of the aircraft of the day with its details and performance figures. On one occasion it was a Mozzie and underneath the figures was a note saying they did not believe them. Shortly thereafter, a mozzie was passing through and the British contingent told the pilot of this slight. Subsequently, on departure the mozzie gave the Americans a brief flying display, allegedly with one engine feathered. Probably an apocryphal tale, but a young Ninthace liked it.

Ninthace, You will like this then:-

Ooooh! I nearly had to go and get a towel.

Oddly. Daddy Ninthace, who flew Ansons, Catalinas and Sunderlands and was fulsome in his praize of the Mozzie, secretly lusted after, but never flew, Bostons. In fact, from his logbook, he never did long in Sunderlands either, before the Emperor thwarted his ambitions by surrendering. There are also the remains of a hole in Cheshire that he has half a credit for, having dug it a with a Tiger Moth, early with in his career.

Which sadly is the most likely outcome IMHO.

It would marvellous to end up with both of them.....but I just can't see the required £10m+ being raised to enable that to happen.

There's a fellow with bags of money what just went into space that might be swayed to dig into his pocket a little bit.....perhaps do a bit of competition with Red Bull maybe?

No, its not the type of thing he's interested in supporting by all accounts.

Saw this when it came out. Mosquito Squadron
(notasamod)

Bergerie1. You may have also flown G-AOIN. I was in Exeter to fly it back to Biggin Hill with a view to going home to Oz in it. Lack of funds kyboshed that. I sold it to ?.. can’t remember but they just crashed it .
but I did come back and get G-AOHF Auster J5P Autocar and it did the job admirably.
Mind you the long term Gipsy Major earbashing thrum just doesn’t beat a Merlin flyby.

Aroa, G-AOIN was a Tiger - 'OCN was one of seven Mossies bought by a Robert Short in 1956 and ended up going to the Israeli Defence Force. Funnily enough, Short lived near here in those days, pass the house regularly...

In 1986/7 there was an attempt to obtain a suitable airframe for the BBMF. I believe it would have been successful as it was supported by a significant number of ex very high ranking persons and influential organisations. It came to nothing due to reluctance to enlarge the Flight for financial concerns. What a missed opportunity!