@@julianshepherd2038 don't stop at just the fly! Much like their namesake, the Mosquito aircraft may also transmit a type of 'parasite' that has an incredibly potent 'sleeping sickness' of its own. Hand in hand with war, nature is incredibly savage; and always creating new ways to kill things.
Sadly, you rarely see a mossie in game, for some reason it performs poorly compared to it's real life achievements. Much lesser planes (BF 110, I'm looking at you) have a greater in game performance, and far far more variants modeled, which is pretty stupid. Unless you get one of the mossie's that are currently modeled in Warthunder as part of the link above you need to be prepared for a long grind through the "tech tree" to get one. If you do get one "free", then don't expect "real world" performance.
I remember in a documentary, some old carpenter who helped build Mosquitos during the war call this plane "the best piece of furniture this country ever made"
"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 Meyer
@@COIcultist supposedly, Goehring said that if the British ever bomb Berlin, you can called him Meyer (or Meier), seen as a Jewish name. They did, so some do.
@@kemarisite "No enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr. If one reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Göring. You can call me Meyer.” - Hermann...uh... Meyer, 1939
My Grandfather was a navigator on the this beauty. He’d often speak of its incredible speed and agility, thanks to its wooden design. His pilot would make him sick by nose diving the plane, and make him shit his pants when skimming the surface of the Channel with the wing tips. Didn’t get many battle stories from grandad, other than a vague mention of bombing a train tunnel on both ends to trap a German transport inside, and giving away cigarettes to wounded German soldiers in a field hospital. Regarding the latter, he intended to sell the cigs and make a cheeky profit, but his humanity got the better of him the moment he saw their agonised faces. In the end, he hated war but loved to fly. RIP Flight Officer Gilliam
@Bobb Grimley A definition of 'skim' from the Cambridge Dictionary, 'to move quickly just above a surface without touching it'. As to why, obviously to put the wind up @Kriss Jill's Grandad.
@Kris Jill Thank you for sharing your Grandfather's story. No disrespect but I'm hoping the 'wingtips skimming the Channel' was a bit of an exaggeration. That sounds foolhardy even for the most skilled pilot.
@@WorldWarTwo haha knowing grandad, I'm most certain it was! His memoirs give a slightly more modest account, if you'll indulge me: We [grandad and his pilot Johnny] then joined 613 Squadron of the 2nd Tactical Air Force Force [previously stationed at Finmere, Oxfordshire (No. 13 OTU)], engaged in low level interdiction flights, attacking German trains, military convoys, airfields, army barracks-- anything, in fact, that moved. These missions were largely over Northern France and Germany, although once we circled the Eiffel Tower so that I could take a few photos with my trusty little Brownie camera One of the more interesting exploits carried out by the squadron at this time was the bombing of both ends of the railway tunnels after a troop or freight train had entered, with disastrous consequences for all aboard. Johnny and I took delight in crossing the English Channel low enough for the propeller tips to flick the surface of the sea. We practiced attacks on English fishing trawlers, no doubt to the detriment of their peace of mind.
@Bobb Grimley Short answer: they don't! I guess you could try and bank the wings, but I imagine that's not possible either. He was an old fart by the time he told me these stories, so I take it as read that they're.. what shall we say?... subject to doubt. Fun stories though!
Wooden plane means that there are no rivets. Wings and fuselage surface was very smooth compare to traditional metal constructions. In result this technology offered less drag which had it's manifestation on speed.
@@alexguymon7117 The density of wood compared to it's strength wasn't really an advantage compared to aluminium. Other heavy fighters, such as the BF-110 and Ki-45, had a similar weight as the Mosquito. In the end using wood vs aluminium is still an trade off. Being mostly a question of availability and workability.
@@martijn9568 But the BF-110 was slow and unwieldy because of poor aerodynamics and not especially great engines, leaving the BF with a deficit of approx 1000hp against the Mozzy. The BF may have weighed less (6T to 8T), but the mosquito really did have exceptional aero, and with that hp advantage, proved to be a truly exceptional design. Also worth pointing out that its successor would have been an even greater triumph, but the advent of jet power, and the fact that development wasn't seen as necessary, meant that it never got the opportunity. So the Mosquito will stay in the record books as probably the greatest piston-engined "Fast Bomber" in history. That is quite an irony, as Germany's supposed technical superiority, along with the fact that Germany pioneered and championed the whole concept, was never able to get even close to that title. Germany's "Fast Bombers" were neither very good at going very fast, nor were they even very good at bombing.
A lot of high-performance fighters with metal wings had the rivets flush and even filled for better performance. This was tested on a Spitfire using split peas to replicate raised rivets, which were cheaper. They were removed progressively until the optimum balance between performance and construction complexity/costs was reached. The Mosquito of course, never suffered that.
Small point, the Mosquitoes bombed Berlin just before Goering's speech, not Hitler's. The sound of bombs could be heard in the background before they cut to music. Otherwise great video, very accurate.
The De Havilland Aircraft Museum in Hertfordshire, has three versions of the DH.98 Mosquito on display: Prototype, Bomber and Fighter-Bomber. It's Britain's oldest aviation museum and is located at Salisbury Hall, where the Mosquito was first developed.
I haven't been since my parents retired and moved away from Hatfield in the eighties. Tried to go back a couple of years ago but it was shut due to covid. Hopefully I'll do it this year along with Duxford?
My great grandfather worked in a furniture factory before WW2, during the war they transferred from building wardrobes and chairs to aircraft parts, eventually shifting to assembling Mosquitoes. He was always a fan of these aircraft, as their combat success was rivalled by their elegant design.
Even after studying WWII and related events for over 50 years I still learn new and fascinating facts in every one of your episodes. I’m constantly amazed at the world class quality of these productions. Very proud to be a member of the TimeGhost Army.
Fantastic stuff, Indy! The man in the Air Ministry who consistently pushed the Mosquito project from conception to reality should be also mentioned. He was Air Marshall Wilfrid Freeman, who supported Geoffrey de Havilland against repeated opposition from 1939 to July 1941 when the unarmed bomber version was at last given official approval. The very concept of an unarmed wooden(!) 'Schnellbomber', de Havilland's take on the original German idea, seemed outlandish to most of the decision-makers of the Air Ministry. The Mosquito was known as 'Freeman's Folly' until it finally silenced the doubters with its outstanding performance.
@@WorldWarTwo Thanks for your kind words. I have a great source by Anthony Furse, called 'Wilfrid Freeman, The Genius behind Allied Survival and Air Supremacy 1939 to 1945'. The title oversells it, but it is still a great book. Freeman also worked closely with Avro when the Manchester became the Lancaster, and was greatly involved with the lobbying of the US Government to put the Merlin Mustang into full production. In WW1 he had flown vulnerable RFC two seaters in skies inhabited by deadly German scouts. By 1917 he commanded a wing of four squadrons, acutely aware he had to order men in often obsolescent planes to their deaths. Thus he knew from personal experience that in order to achieve and keep air supremacy, aircraft development had to be continuous throughout a war. In 1917 the RFC was slaughtered during 'Bloody' April but owing to new designs which entered service shortly afterwards, the Sopwith Camel, the SE5a, the F.2B variant of the Bristol Fighter, and the SPAD S.XIII, the Allies seized air supremacy and kept it until the end of the war. Freeman never forgot these lessons.
The Air Ministry were very skeptical about de Havillands performance claims for the Mosquito despite their proven track record with air race aircraft etc. They tried to intercept a prototype 'Mossie' with the latest Spitfire and couldn't catch it!
@Neil Pemberton Yes, Freeman knew de Havilland from WW1, and had been impressed, as had others, in the DH.4 light bomber that could outrun enemy fighters, a thinking behind the concept of the Mosquito. Opposition from the Air Ministry was earlier than you suggest with de Havilland declining to even submit a proposal for the 1936 spec P.13/36 which called for a medium bomber with gun turrets. His vision of a design that cumulated in the Mosquito, is what he arged for through to 1938 when in that December, with backing from Freeman, he was given a unique specification, B.1/40/dh to produce a prototype.
Would wholeheartedly recommend Wilhelm Johnen's memoirs "Duel under the Stars", the memoirs of a German nightfigher pilot. Late in the war he pretty vividly recounts the terror of marauding Mosquitos in British bomber streams fitted with receivers that could home in on German radar emissions. Whenever they lit up their radars, within a minute or two their tail warning radar receiver would start shrieking that a Mosquito was behind them. Worse, the German nightfighters were overloaded, outdated Bf-110's that hadn't changed much since 1941, so were easy prey to the much faster Mosquitos.
@@MrK1kk3r - indeed it is, comes right up in a search: "Duel Under the Stars: The Memoir of a Luftwaffe Night Pilot in World War II" by Wilhelm Johnen. Adding to my to-read list, thanks all. And yes, while the heavily-armed Messerschmitt Bf-110s were deadly "bomber destroyers" against unescorted Allied heavy bombers, they were no match for Allied escort fighters. The Bf-110s themselves required their own escort fighters! But that wasn't really an option for night fighting. The Bf-110s will inflict heavy losses on American heavy bombers in 1943, before the Americans come up with an escort fighter of their own with sufficient range to accompany the bombers all the way to the target and back. For now, the Germans just have to form up at the point where they know the shorter-ranged P-47s and P-38s have to turn back, and then have their way with the bombers. Once the Anglo-American hybrid P51D Mustang arrives in numbers with its high performance and long range, the Bf-110s will get slaughtered. The Germans knew they had a problem with the Bf-110 and kept trying to replace it with something better but ran into so many development problems that the Bf-110 had to keep flying until it became hopeless. Not to mention that German aircraft factories will increasingly turn into bomb magnets. Meanwhile, over in bomb-proof America, aircraft development continues at a rapid pace right through the war.
My Father was a "Rigger" (airframe fitter) with De Havilland from 1931 at Stag Lane until retiring as Chief QA Engineer from BAe at Hatfield in 1982. He adored the Mosquito and its immediate three or four military successors. He aways had an affinity with wood. I still have a couple of his test jobs from his apprenticeship from '31 to '35. You would think, looking at them, that he was training to be a cabinet maker. I used to enjoy watching the Mosquitos and Hornets fly during the open days at Hatfield in the sixties as a kid. Probably one of the reasons I joined the RAF in the seventies.
Yes the Hornet does have that reputation. is it fully merited? Many tsstimonies from pilots I've read over the years indicate iyt was great. But then air crew always bias in favour of whatever equipment they fly., I know of no run--offs Hornet vs P61s or later so how do we know?
@@brucebartup6161 Sorry, I don't understand? A huge Night-fighter and a single seat fighter that's around 100 mph faster, there's no comparison. Are you mistaken about the aeroplane names? Just take a look at what Eric Brown, the test pilot said. He flew both.
@@johnp8131 there was a trial off DH 98 Mosquito vs P 61 . There was no similar trial of DH 103 Hornet vs anything At least I never head of one but you are dead right my ignorant self had forgotten that test pilot statements were available. . Also i think that many operational plots would had experience with several types. Sorry for all the typos ,I have Parkionson's . sorry to have wasted your time
@@brucebartup6161 Not a problem. Just for your information, take a look on Wikipedia at the Eric "Winkle" Brown, aircraft flown list. Impressive! even if you can't trust everything on "Wiki"? Also, there are many documentaries, on Eric Brown and his life on UA-cam. Worth checking out if you haven't already?
If I win the lottery, I'd pay good money to set up shop making Mosquitoes using original blueprints (as near as is able). I think there's a market for people who'd like to own such a replica. (And while I'm raiding the De Havilland archives, I'd see about re-launching the DHC-2 Beaver ...)
@@LordOfLightmeh the Spitfire is globally known and an icon for the British. It has been mentioned in tv shows entirely unrelated to aviation (Top Gear, QI, etc). Can't say the Mosquito is anywhere near as widely mentioned.
Canada made 1143 mosquitos in Downsview, just north of Toronto, Ontario, from 1942 to 1945. Today there is a museum there in the company’s compounds. Also, Canada made some of the Hawker Hurricanes in Thunder Bay Ontario. Here, the factory was supervised by the first female aeronautical engineer Elsie McGill. Thank you for your channel. Always very informative! Stay safe, stay sane, be well
The wooden wonder that bit the Germans back! One of my earliest memories of film was watching the Mosquito raid in 633 Squadron, that movie cemented my love of the "mozzie"!
As an aviation guy I've seen numerous docs on the dh-98. You guys do an excellent job of sticking to what is true and relevant to the situation at the time. Great special episode!
Your team shines again. The Mosquito has been covered by documentaries quite often, however your writers pack so much detail, and especially context, into this video that a 1 hour film would not educate to the same level as this one. Once again, The TG Army cuts through the flotsam and pinpoints the many keys to this remarkable aircraft, as they always do on any subject you cover.
@Mark Hodge Thank you for the very kind words and high praise! Our audience's enthusiasm really puts the wind in our sails week after week, so thank you for sharing your reflections on the video. We look forward to having you with us through the rest of this interminable war.
Marvelous plane, the Mosquito. I have seen one fly by many years ago. Absolute beauty. The Bristol Beaufighter was perhaps even more versatile, as it worked in every theatre of the war, whereas the Mosquito had difficulties in hot, humid climates, whereas the Beaufighter (less glamourous, slower), did its diverse jobs well everywhere
I was at the airshow back in 2015 I think where one of the rebuilds flew. Was a display event with a number of us in universal carriers were hooning across a field when the mossie came in low overhead. Stunning sound
I remember chatting to a Beaufighter night fighter radar operator in the eighties, and they were told never to take on the Junker 88, and corkscrew to get away from it !
I remember seeing the working Mosquito in person at the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach back when it was the only airworthy example left. Truly an amazing thing to see in person.
Thanks. Great episode. My granddad was in the RAF in a ground crew in Ww2. Amazing to think that you could go from making furniture ( as an apprentice draftsman) to fixing repairs on the fastest plane in the world!..people forget how short we were for metal! Using wood for mosquitos and hurricanes was a big advantage.
The National Museum of the USAF has a Mosquito on display with invasion stripes painted on the underside of the wings. That specific one was built in 46 but that's a good thing for the museum because it never got shot up. love the video Indy!
2:05 the concrete molds to build the fuselage halves were an advantage to achieve high production rates. in 3:53, the halves are outfitted with internal components before being joined, this allows much easier installation. Compare to the pictures of riveters crawling inside cramped metal fuselages DeHavilland not only thought about the performance, he also put a lot of effort into the production requirements.
One thing I've learned from watching military channels: It's rather difficult to design a prototype plane or firearm. It's *really* difficult to design efficient production for it, and the capability for efficient production has to be incorporated into its design - along with all the other competing design features.
@@donjones4719 spot on.👍This is why whenever someone says ̈ T34 was poorly built" or "the Sherman *could* have been better" it annoys me to no end. Dude, you are in the middle of a freaking WAR... the fact that something gets built is amazing. That they are building it by the hundreds is a certifiable miracle. And that they are any good at all is deserving of worship. We are so spoiled with run flat tires and 20k miles between oil changes we have NO IDEA what production, or war, is about.😁
The last flying British Mosquito flew over my house about 2 weeks before it crashed at an airshow. Being attuned to the sound of a Merlin engine I dashed outside to see it rip overhead, boy was I surprised. What a glorious looking, sounding plane.
You do know they have got a couple of then flying again the basic took them apart and rea glued then again I'm sure there are plenty of vids on the tube think first one was done in Australia
I played a bunch of WWII flight sims. When I played a Luftwaffe campaign I hated dealing with Mosquitos. If the Mosquitos didn't want to engage, then good luck. I'd be playing various models of the Fw190, Bf109 the Mosquito outran me. I had needed to have position and height advantage to try and dive on them. If I didn't have these advantages, I wasn't catching them. There's someone I watch also that does a lot of flight sims (Growling Sidewinder with DCS, IL-2 flight sims). He had done some videos with the Bf109K and on the WWII server he had going on, encountered a flight of Mosquitos. He repeatedly talked about how much he hated dealing with them. Also, very late in the war the British trained up some Mosquito pilots to conduct Carrier operations. The intent was in 1945 to use British Carriers to launch Mosquitos and raiding Japanese ports. You know, return the favor because of 1941-1942, that sort of thing. The British Pacific Fleet had a bunch of ships, one of the largest single commitments ever by the Royal Navy, already operating out in the Pacific with the US Navy. But the war ended before these sea borne Mosquito raids were executed. Admiral Bruce Fraser had the privilege of commanding BPF, which surely was a nice feather under his hat, commanding one of the largest single commands of the Royal Navy in a seagoing command. Battleships, Carriers, Cruisers, Destroyers, tons of ships under his command, and at war with the Japanese. They were working with the late war US Navy, so it was an unstoppable juggernaut combined.
My father, an RAF navigator/bomb aimer used to maintain that the RAF would have been better off building more Mosquitoes, and not put as much effort into building Lancs and Halibags. Of course, it would have been interesting seeing a Mosquito trying to take off carrying a Tall Boy ... Almost forgot to mention, because it was made mostly of wood (apart from the engines and some other features), it was difficult to pick up on radar as well, making it a bit of a stealth plane as well. Ironically enough, I am writing this while measuring tree rings.
To a certain extent that isn't true. Bomber Commands operational research section crunched the numbers over the winter of 1943/44 and found that while the Mosquito was very economical to operate, its actual utility before it was lost wasn't as great as it would appear in the night bomber role. From page 149 of Randel Wakeman's "Science of Bombing" book: During the period of 1 June to 15 September 1943: Lancaster: 3.5% loss rate 3.95 tons of bombs carried on average 112.6 tons of bombs dropped per missing aircraft Halifax: 5.4% loss rate 2.29 tons of bombs carried on average 45.4 tons of bombs dropped per missing aircraft Mosquito: 2.3% loss rate 0.68 tons of bombs carried on average 29.8 tons of bombs dropped per missing aircraft Daylight mosquito losses was higher than night losses since the BF109s and FW190 day fighters could catch up more easily than the slower German night fighters. The losses of 2 Group mosquitoes in daylight raids in early to mid 1943 were not particularly great, something like 3-5% based off a cursory glance at the "Bomber Command War Diaries" by Martin Middlebrooke. A big issue was that it takes well over a year for a factory to switch to a bomber type and hit peak production. If you play Hearts of Iron 4 you see this where it takes time to reach production efficiency on a type of design. It is only with the arrival of the 4000lb carrying Mosquito there is any real merit to making them as a potential replacement for heavy bombers, but those didn't show up until late 1943 and by then it was really too late to stop heavy bomber production for mossies unless you wanted a year where very little was built because factories were trying to switch production mid-stream.
@@kellyshistory306 I won't argue with you. After all, it was what my father used to say. I think he was considering it from the point of how many air crew and engines were lost each time an airplane was shot down, not tonnage dropped. Hence my joke about it carrying a Tall Boy or Grand Slam.
*_"Almost forgot to mention, because it was made mostly of wood (apart from the engines and some other features), it was difficult to pick up on radar as well, making it a bit of a stealth plane as well."_* Wrong. This is a widely spread internet hoax.
My Grandfather, William Bear, was the Foreman at the General Motors factory in Oshawa, where the Mosquito Bombers were made. Grandad was a fine cabinet maker. I have a beautiful jewelry box made from left over scrap wood from Mosquito Bomber fuselage. It's signed and dated by him. I have little shelves made from the windscreens. I keep my family treasures in the box my Grandad made. I have ration tickets from the war, a bullet made into a brooch, a kilt pin, a tiny tear drop made from the windscreen with my Mom's picture as a child in it, and the medal my Grandad received from The Red Cross for donating so much blood during g the war years. If the house ever caught fire, I would grab that box before grabbing my purse! Love your channel❤
When I was growing in North Vancouver BC our neighbour Doug Wilkinson was a Mosquito pilot, I remember seeing his 2 DFC's and His Victoria Cross on his front room wall .he got the VC for downing 4 ME 109's and damaging another in a melee over the English channel. I can't now remember were and when he got the 2 DFC's but you can imagine it was pretty stern stuff. Those Mossies were fine aircraft.
I appreciate this video's use of sponsor footage accompanied by on-message narration. Sure, you're advertising the sponsor's product, but in a fashion that adds value to the information being covered without only referencing said product.
Advertisement can be stylish and unintrusive. Indy Neidell can be good advertising agent when needed and his clear commentary kind-of adds credibility. He might even have expertise on subject he advertises Not only as expert of subject, but product itself.
Amazing legendary airplane. I have sat in the cockpit of one of the WW2 Mosquitos at the De Havilland Aircraft museum in Hatfield close to where they were designed and built. Young men fly in that plane and it made me very proud of them. The team there have done brilliant restoration work and they have the original prototype that when flown in tests was significantly faster the the fastest Spitfire the RAF had. The air ministry then took notice that Britain had a seriously good new airplane.
@Edward Garea Thanks for watching! I hope you like, subscribe, and please consider joining the TimeGhost Army on Patreon to help us make more episodes all the time! www.patreon.com/join/timeghosthistory
Such a brilliant aircraft there is some archive footage on UA-cam of Mosquestoes doing an attack run on german shipping. It's amazing how much a small squadron of these small aircraft make huge ships look so vulnerable.
@Bobb Grimley kid it's a comment section not an essay, I was just writing it quickly. Oh and did you not learn manners at school, condescension will get you nowhere, in fact it makes your comment look silly rather than informative. Just write the mistake and move on
@Bobb Grimley no I'm saying be normal and informative, rather than condescending, how do you not understand that? It's obvious archive become archieve was autocorrect making your comment look silly, when you are being so rude over something that wasn't even me and even if it was why would you be rude? Especially when your sentences are really poorly thought out and childish in nature.
@@WorldWarTwo Yes I was very good. I have read many books on this plane and its pilots experiences. Your video covered most of the important points in only a few minutes. It would be nice if you could do more videos on the different roles, all of which were very successful. The night fighter and marauder roles being so successful that Luftwaffe pilots suffering from battle stress, were said to be suffering from "Mosquito Panik".
@@markhorton8578 Mossies were not multi role, they were purpose built for specific roles. Bombers and PR did not have guns or cannon, fighter bombers had a max internal bomb load of 500 lb. BAE Mosquito page.
On a slight tangent Geoffrey De Havilland was related to Olivia De Havilland the actress, they were cousins. The Mossie is one of my favourite aircraft, to start with it was an under dog. Almost no one in the Air Ministry liked the idea yet De Havilland pressed on and gave them a superb aircraft. Thank goodness he did!
@James Harris Thank you for sharing that added info. No matter how in-depth our research week by week, I'm always astonished at the amazing knowledge y'all in the TimeGhost Army share. Thank you for watching!
Driving on the outskirts of Auckland one day I heard the unmistakable sound of twin merlins. iI guessed what it was before I could see it . One of the Mosquito's rebuilt by Avspecs at Ardmore NZ.on its maiden flight . Awesome That these magnificent machines are able to take to the air once again.
ever since CuriousDroid did a piece on the Mosquito over a year ago I've been obsessed by this aircraft! Keep your lancasters, B17s, Mustangs and spitfires. To me this is the plane that won the war
@@martijn9568 No but the "outdated" Beaufighters picked up the slack in that theater. I think the Beau's and Mossies were pretty complementary in most theaters. Both very capable planes in the right hands.
2:28 a quick footnote here, the casein glue is relatively easy to acquire (keyword here being relatively) because casein is a basic protein found in milk that can be precipitated by just acidifying the milk (to a pH of 4.6). It is easier to acquire than other glues because it only requires milk and acid (be it vinegar if you don't have any industrial-grade acid or sulfuric acid if you have it) and the precipitated casein need to have the remaining acid be neutralized using baking soda and voilà, you can assemble wood for your De Havilland Mosquito. But the problem of using casein glue is you put a tax on the farming industry of your country (there is roughly 30 grams per liter of milk) by using some of its output to produce glue
He didn’t mention the Amiens raid! One of the Mosquitoes finest hour. A raid designed to release resistance fighters from a prison. They had to fly at 30ft, drop their bombs which would skid along the ground and detonate against the wall blowing a hole in it. The damage can still be seen today!
There has been a lot of doubt cast about that raid. It takes nothing away from the performance of the aircraft or it’s crews but the back story and the outcome are still debated to this day.
@@marcuswardle3180 Plenty of people have cast doubt on it. There was a book written about ten years ago by a French man from that area called J.P. Ducellier that basically says the story behind it, as you and I know it, is wrong. As I said, it takes nothing away from the way the mission was flown or the efforts of those involved, just that the back story is wrong.
My Granddads Squadron flew Mozzies in Burma , a lot of the pilots were mad Aussies who loved to fly along the local water ways at below tree top height , frightening the crap out of anybody in a boat .
The Mosquito is arguably the most highly regarded warbird of WWII; everybody rated it, even Hermann Göring raved about it for Chrissake. How can anyone reasonably suggest it's "underrated"?
@@LordOfLight I’m going to say it was the best aircraft of WWII but not many will agree with me. So I think it was definitely underrated. So was the Beaufighter.
1927 Lockheed Vega The fuselage was built from sheets of plywood, skinned over wooden ribs. Using a large concrete mold, a single half of the fuselage shell was laminated in sections with glue between each layer and then a rubber bladder was lowered into the mold and inflated with air to compress the lamination into shape against the inside of the mold. The two fuselage halves were then nailed and glued over a separately constructed rib framework. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Vega#Design_and_development
For those in the UK there is an exhibition on the Mosquito at Hughenden Manor near High Wycombe (about half way between London and Oxford). There is also an exhibition about WW2 aerial photography. It is a National Trust property so members get free admission.
Go to Salisbury Hall, just off junction 22 of the M25 and you will find 3 Mosquitos at the De Havilland Aircraft Museum, including the first one ever built.
Flak damage that ripped aluminium planes apart went straight through the Mosquito leaving holes but far less damage. The monocoque composite construction was incredibly strong while achieving excellence aerodynamics. The Tsetse version used the British 57mm Six Pounder anti tank gun with Mohlins auto loader. The Six Pounder field gun was so good against German armour that it was in use throughout WW2. Merlin engines up to around the 61 version had serious problems when over revved - conrods seized and broke. It turned out the oil pump was not flowing enough oil. Bigger pump and problem solved. These are the versions that went into Mosquito.
Wood fiber in a lignin matrix cut to a thin veneer strips or plies that are adhesively bonded with glue. Carbon fiber in a thin tape or ply in an epoxy resin matrix, which self bonds when cured. Designing with either material follows the same principals. Indy and Co - glad you used the term "composite" to describe the Mosquito's structure, that is very apt. Layering the plies in plywood, with different layers orienting the fibers in varying directions, is no different a principal than orienting the layers in a modern carbon fiber, Kevlar or fiberglass laminate. Ditto shaping these ply layups in matching molds (female mold, the raw laminate, then a male mandrel to compress the laminate during the curing process). A precursor airplane that used similar wood technology to the Mosquito was the Lockheed Vega from the late 20's into the 30's.
@@WorldWarTwo Wing skins and wing spars (main beams) generally have loads in the plane of the structural member. The shell of the fuselage is the same. These are perfect for "composite" materials. Where you'll see metal in the Mosquito is where you have loads / stresses out of plane, or complex loads / stresses in multiple directions or highly concentrated loads / stresses that need to be spread out into the composite structure. Think engine mounts, landing gear mounts, perhaps the splice fittings between the wing structure and fuselage structure, back up or support fittings behind concentrated loads like wing pylon mounts to the wing structure, etc.. Hmmm...exactly where they'd be if it were graphite epoxy vs plywood.
And if you'd like to make a model - go to the hobby shop. Obtain 2 thin balsa planks (1" x 1/8" - sorry, you do the metric conversion) about 2 feet or 3 feet long. Note how "floppy" they are. Now, get some 1" thick Styrofoam insulation from the home center. Cut a piece to match the width and length of the balsa. Laminate the balsa on either side of the foam, using standard children's glue. Once fully set up, note how stiff the resultant beam is (balsa on the top and bottom, as the flanges of an "I" beam, while the foam is the web). This is the same basic construction of modern "sandwich" graphite and honeycomb panels.
Greatest plane of WWII. I cannot think of another bomber that was completely unarmed. In Australia and the tropics, the wood did have some problems with moisture retention.
De Havilland had experience of high-speed wooden aircraft, the DH.88 Comet racer (not the post-war jet of the same name) was a perfect example of this. There is a Comet flying from the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden in Bedfordshire - well worth a visit - and while nothing like the Mosquito in appearance, it's the granddaddy of the Mossie. As a kid, I always enjoyed seeing a Mossie at airshows but there hasn't been a flying one in the UK for some years. One is being built, and there are several flying elsewhere, having been built in New Zealand. If a Merlin on song sounds great in a Spitfire, it sounds sublime when there's two of them in a Mossie. The Lancaster has more but not the turn of speed that a Mosquito can put in, and a late war camo scheme makes them look the business.
Growing up I lived a few miles from Hawarden Airport where the last flying Mossie in the UK, RR299, was based. Every few weeks it would be flown, either for pilot training or post maintenance proving flights. The sound of those two merlins at high speed was magnificent. I was so sad when she was destroyed in a crash over at Barton, nr Manchester. Still, not long ago Airbus UK (who are the inheritors of the wartime DeHaveland factory) found a complete set of Mosquito blueprints in an old building they were going to demolish. These were given to The People's Mosquito - the group who are building an airworthy mossie in the UK to fly at air displays around the country. www.peoplesmosquito.org.uk/
Dear Indy et al. in the late 30th my father attended the de Havilland Aeronautical Technical School in Hatfield. There he became a life long friend with John "Cat Eyes" Cunningham. He ,or rather the disinformation spread by the Air Ministry via the press, is to blame for the still existing myth of eating carrots to achieve excellent night vision. The Mosquito was also used for envoy flights, some of them to Sweden. These Mosquitos was totally unarmed to gain even further performance. BTW It was also on these trips to England that my father became an also life long friend with Hanna Reitsch, as they both were glider pilots. Thanks for yet another fantastic episode. As always, best greetings from Sweden.
During the war they built a composite spitfire fuselage,as a trial.using early composite materials, I worked there,they make araldite there now they also made aerolite glues for mosquito,and vampire and many other wood based aircraft.
Except most of the Wood used to build the Mosquito wasn't. 80% of the wood in the Mosquito came from trees that did not grow in the UK. Where are there forests of Balsa wood trees in the UK??? Of the six types of wood used (Ash, Silver Birch, Yellow Birch, Douglas Fir, Spruce and Balsa), only two grew in the UK (the first two) and the rest had to be imported (from the western USA, Canada and South America). Mosquito production didn't really ramp up until after the U-boats were defeated.
@@richardvernon317 The wood itself was fairly complicated to source, true. But most woodworkers did not have much to do to help in the war effort - until the Mosquito needed to be built 🙃 So it's as much about skills laborers as it is about materials.
I often find it ironic that in modern times, we've 'advanced' so much that the most basic and easily obtainable and sustainable resource, wood... has become such an elaborate and overly expensive product if worked with anything close to a decent degree of craftsmanship. What would have been an exceptionally common skill set even to the 1950's is now a niche art form. Plastic and whatnots have their advantages, sure. But polymer has about as much soul, grace, and beauty as modern music. In other words, mostly none whatsoever. The Mosquito was perhaps the swan song of functionality in wooden architecture, and maybe one of the last examples of the marriage between the old world and the new.
@@richardvernon317 The Australians built Mosquitos in Sydney and Beuafighters in Melbourne and had trouble getting some materials for both of them. I understand that they successfully substituted some of their own native wood for at least one of the imported woods in their Mozzies. They also modified their Beufighters to use local material, but it escapes me what they did to them.
These planes were first tested from Edsell aerodrome in Angus just outside Montrose East Coast Scotrland. My parents seen these being flown over the tpwn. They lived in the Marine Hotel Bentes Road in Montrose and this building is still standing to this day.
I got to see one of these beauties fly a few years ago. Damn' powerful airplane! The Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum here in Everett, Washington has one (the fighter version IIRC, with 4 20mm guns). Hope to see ber fly again once COVID settles down.
Oh those marvelous Mossies. Though i am surprised there was no mention of the Amiens raid. I do wonder what they could have done if they had a modern Gatling in the nose, much like the Warthog.
Indy didn't mention the most lunatic Mosquito variation, the Sea Mosquito TR Mk 33. At a time when the heaviest carrier aircraft was the 10,500lb Grumman Avenger, somebody thought we could have a sea variant of a Mosquito with twin props and weighing 20,000lb. Fortunately we had a suitable test pilot, Eric "Winkle" Brown, a man who eventually would test fly 487 differing marques, a figure never likely to be equalled. Airscapemag does a far more expansive explanation of the story of producing a miniature bouncing bomb delivery system than I ever could achieve. For our cousins across the pond who may have not heard of the bouncing bomb or operation Chastise, watch The Dambusters. N.B.England isn't the US and especially wasn't in 1943 what he called his dog is not a rude word. Brown Crops up again as his favourite plane was the Mosquito derived Hornet single seat fighter. One of the Mosquitos biggest fans Herman Goering was interviewed by Brown just after WWII. Brown was fluent in German and knew several German pilots from before the war. I realise you colonial types pronounce words differently, but is how Indy pronounced "Tsetse" correct in the US? Also, he didn't explain the joke as a variant of the Mosquito the 6lb gun equipped one is called the Tsetse, after a particularly nasty African biting fly.
Are you kidding? I was humming the Dambusters theme yesterday! Everyone here on the correct side of The Pond with any knowledge of aviation history knows about the Dambusters. .
@@saparotrob7888 I'm very happy if you do know about it. I remember an interview with Richard Todd where he was talking about being in a film in the US where he had a copy of The Dambusters flown over and everyone thought it was a fictional story as they had never heard about it. The revisionist scum at the RAF desecrated the dog's grave and replaced the gravestone with one without his name on it. Any idea about the Tsetse pronunciation?
@@COIcultist I always heard it pronounced "TZEE TZEE" as a kid. Then as the centuries past, I heard the English version "TEH TSEE". The Brits built it. They name it. "Good-Oh!" on Mustang!
Bascially the forerunner to all modern bombers, fast, agile and using those qualities to help it when enemy fighter arrive instead of turret farms that are not particularly effective
Frankly, I don’t see any modern so-called “bombers“ that are fast and agile and in-service for any significant length of time. Even the B2 is being retired. It seems to me the emphasis is on stealth and stand off launching of weapons. I don’t know exactly where you’re coming from? I wish it was true that there were these fast and agile bombers, maybe you are thinking about fighter bombers like F-16s? Even then all of these are vulnerable to missiles. The day of the Manned Combat aircraft, those days are limited, and should have been over decades ago. If only the militaries of the world weren’t so incredibly stupid!
Great piece Timeghost team! This machine was such a fantastic piece of kit! So glad you discussed the pathfinders briefly! I think the Pathfinders squadron probably deserve their own episode, or at least a sub section is a larger bomber command part 2. It's incredibly interesting that when you look into special operations in Europe at this time, as you said, mosquitoes are the aircraft of choice for their multi-role capability. And the choice to construct these planes from wood, as you said, was great due to availability and also skills necessary for repairs! These are often overlooked aspects of total war, needing to upskill manufacturing, maintenance and repair to newer technology and materials. The mosquitoes was a fantastic outside the square approach to a problem. Just want to say, you guys have a fantastic holistic approach to history and your content. Like you say, history doesn't occur in a vacuum, neither do decision of hardware and equipment!
Excellent and informative as always. Growing up in London in the sixties almost every year they broadcasted the movies about RAF heroics in WWII such as 633 Squadron, Mosquito Squadron and the Dam Busters. Could you also make a video about the Bouncing Bomb developed by Dr. B. N. Wallis to destroy the Dam in Ruhr Valley, and a profile of Wing Squadron Leader Guy Gibson. They were both interesting characters, and in terms of Guy Gibson, he was tragically killed near the end of the war (September 1944) at a quite young age of 26. Thanks as always for your great work.
@M Shahnazi Thanks for sharing. We do as many special episodes as we possibly can, so please spread the word about our Patreon to help us follow the war more closely, and make ever-more special episodes www.patreon.com/join/timeghosthistory
12:31 - "...and can reach targets far beyond the range of other bombers." According to Wikipedia, the de Havilland Mosquito B Mk.XVI had a range of 1,300 mi (2,100 km, 1,100 nmi). For comparison with some other Allied twin-engined medium bombers, the Martin B-26G Marauder had a range of 1,150 mi (1,850 km, 1,000 nmi) with 3,000 pounds (1,400 kg) bombload and 1,153 US gal (4,365 l) of fuel. The Douglas A-26B Invader had a range of 1,600 mi (2,600 km, 1,400 nmi). The Mosquito was certainly faster than other Allied medium bombers but its range was not "far beyond" theirs; rather, it was middle of the pack. And none of the medium bombers had the range of the typical four-engined heavy bomber except when equipped with a ferry tank. The four-engined Consolidated B-24 Liberator for example had such long range that it became the first aircraft to make routine nonstop flights across the Atlantic Ocean, and (in the timeline) will soon be responsible for closing the deadly "mid-Atlantic air gap" that the German U-boats have been exploiting to sink Allied shipping in the first years of the war. However, the high performance of the Mosquito and its resulting low loss rate to enemy defenses raises the question of why the Allies bothered trying to bomb Germany with slow lumbering heavy bombers at all. (At least before Allied escort fighters can neutralize Luftwaffe fighters, which is a year away at this point in the timeline.) It would seem that with all the losses of heavy bombers and their large crews, the deadly economics of warfare would favor the medium bomber even with its lighter bombload per sortie. The cost of losing one B-17, B-24, or Lancanster should easily pay for ten trips in a Mossie without getting a scratch. I'd like to know who was responsible for that calculation and what their reasoning was.
If the allies had used fast unarmed bombers like the Mosquito in the place of the four motor heavies you can be sure the Germans would have attempted to optimise their fighter defence to meet that threat.
That thought has tempted me. Also, 4 Merlins will power 2 Mossies vs only 1 Lanc. The long range bomb load of a B-17 isn't great, although a Lanc could carry considerably more. Hordes of Mossies carrying 2000 lb bombloads over the Ruhr and Berlin would have sustained much lighter losses. (I think 4000 lb would cost too much speed and altitude.) *Except,* James Thomas is right. Germany would have given high priority to developing the high altitude version of the FW-190.
@@MrNicoJac Greg's video on the P-47's true range is certainly an eye opener. If not for some bull-headed thinking by some top generals the B-17s could have had fighter protection a lot farther into their missions.
Mosquito was a Light Bomber period!!! Production of it didn't really ramp up until the second half of 1943 because 80% of the wood used in the aircraft was imported (as far as the UK built ones were concerned). The modified ones that could carry the 4000lb bomb didn't become operational until early 1944 as the weapon had a serious negative effect on the balance of the aircraft until ways were found to overcome it. In fact only 30% of Mosquito bomber sorties in 1944/45 actually carried the Cookie, the rest of the force carried either 4x500lb bombs or Target indicators (or a mix of both). Compared with the navigation equipment fitted to the heavies, the equipment in the standard Mosquito was somewhat basic, plus the Navigator also had to do the job of the bomb aimer, Flight Engineer (the fuel feed controls were behind the pilot's seat) and wireless operator. The main role of the Mosquito bombers in 1943 were Oboe pathfinding (either marking the target or marking a waypoint for bombers going to targets outside of Oboe range). Any raids that they were involved in that had them bombing targets outside of GEE / Oboe range required target marking by the Heavies or dropping bombs randomly by dead reckoning. In fact the main bread and butter mission of the Mosquito night bombers were to fly around Germany on a route between four cities and lob a single 500lb bomb in the general direction at each city by dead reckoning to keep the people in the city awake. It was the Heavies that did the real damage to German infrastructure.
The guys at DeHavilland were geniuses, not only with the Mosquito and the Hornet, but also later on creating the world's first Commercial Jetliner, the Comet.
Yes, agreed - DeHavilland was WELL remembered in Germany… I often wondered how it is that the WW2 “air superiority winning” Rolls Royce engines eventually came under the German BMW (German) ownership? The famous DeHavilland Mosquito fighter-bomber - the fastest thing flying in late 1941 / 1942, also with a range to get to Berlin and back… caused so much damage to German war-effort that the Germans always remembered “DeHavilland” - they never forgot… In the early 50’s DeHavilland introduced the first COMMERCIAL JET airliner (with fully powered controls, fully pressurised, cruising at 36,000feet at 490mph, much faster than any competitor) - the DeHavilland DH106 Comet - order-books filled up by dozens of countries and their state-airlines for years to come. Then, as if someone had a grudge against DeHavilland - a Comet taking off from Rome went down over deep water in Jan 1954 (eye-witnesses heard 3 explosions - initial bomb + fuel). Then as a repeat, another Comet taking off again from Rome went down in April 1954. Order-books dried up almost overnight. A psyop cover-story of “square window crack propagation” was repeated for long enough that it became a mantra. Admiral Canaris (who obviously survived the war) - set up continuation of the German black intel - Deutsche Verteidigungs Dienst (DVD) in 1944 - HQ in Dachau. Canaris was the man who ordered the hit on DH Comets - with the aim of strangling the blossoming UK civilian airliner industry. Back to WW2 - Menzies (head of wartime MI6) and Frank Foley (MI6’s supposed expert on Germany) were both later exposed as a double-agents working for the Germans. -- DeHavilland Comet is basically same airframe as the British Aerospace Nimrod AEW3 retired only in 1986 - proving the longevity of the original DeHavilland Comet (and the “square window crack propagation” as the Deutsche Verteidigungs Dienst - DVD, German black intel psyop and economic sabotage to kill off 1950’s fledgling UK’s commercial airline production).
de Havilland already had experience with it's wooden 4 engine DH.91 Albatross. The Mosquito project started with the idea of turning the DH.91 into a fast bomber. This evolved into the Mosquito as we know it. The power of the RR Merlin allowed reduction of 2 engines which then allowed for a smaller air-frame with the same bomb load reducing production time, use of resources and costs. Engineers at de Havilland wanted the pilot and navigator to sit in tandem, reducing drag and slightly greater speed but the RAF insisted pilot and navigator must sit side by side in medium bombers. This later applied to the EE Canberra. The B47, USAAF Canberra version, had them in tandem which did increase speed.
It's also interesting to track the improvements in aircraft quality during the war. The Japanese for example started the war with aircraft that were often superior to their Allied counterparts but then failed to keep up with progress. By 1944 the Japanese will be facing Allied aircraft that are more numerous and of at least comparable if not superior performance across all categories. The Germans in contrast largely kept up with the aircraft performance race, and finished considerably ahead with jet fighters and bombers late in the war, but got destroyed (both literally and figuratively) by Allied advantages of aircraft production and pilot training. It doesn't matter how fast the German jets are when (a) there aren't many of them, and (b) they can only fly for about an hour before they must land to refuel, and swams of Allied fighters are circling the German airfields waiting to pounce. No airplane maintains a speed advantage on final approach.
@@danielmocsny5066 and to give even more credit to the allies, they finished up with jets too, Britain got out the Meteor by like ‘44 and were well on their way to getting out the vampire
The Australian made Mosquitos were superior because of the better, stronger glues developed for the tropics and the use of stronger, lighter Coachwood, which is the same timber used in Australian 303s.
What a magnificent machine the Mosquito was, and still remains to be. No wonder Goering was very jealous of it, moaning that every piano-maker in the British Isles was involved in its construction. And no wonder the British made some of the very best fighter and bomber planes in WW2 - we were crap at making pianos.
That raid on the german radio building is so cheeky. "Oh, you have a 10-year anniversary coming up? That's being broadcast live on radio you say? Oh dear me, I do hope nothing terrible happens to that radio building during the broadcast. That would be extremely embarrassing indeed."
Missed some more advantages - No metal = no rivets (way more aerodynamic) - Wood production means untapped work force can be used (everyone who could work with metal was already swamped with other work, woodworkers not so much) - Wood produces different radar cross section (this does not at all make it harder to detect as some claim, but makes it *different* than metal planes, requiring more effort/training from german radar)
A wonderful "deep-dive" into an versatile airplane. If it weren't for hearing Indie's distinctive voice, it seemed like I was listening to a video by Mark Felton.
I just love how these aircraft where built by the common man, carpenters, joiners, basically anybody who had experience of working with wood, one set of drawings sent to a workshop and the guys would build a Mosquito, simplicity always beats over engineering.
@@julianshepherd2038 definitely not a jet engine this was a piston engine and again simplicity was in the build so many thousands of the Merlin could be built.
True genius is to make the complex simple. To have a truly elegant design, half of the work is on the front end, making simple solutions out of complex problems... that can then be replicated easily.
A couple of things come to mid. Firstly, how much Britain, and the allies generally, seem to owe to 'crazy' engineers, inventors etc who don't accept 'received wisdom'. Secondly, how much Britain, and the allies generally, seem to owe to the Merlin engine: Hurricane, Spitfire, Mosquito, Lancaster, Halifax and probably a few dozen other aircraft.
Among the few dozen other aircraft was the Packard-Merlin-powered North American P-51 Mustang, the fighter that largely destroyed the Luftwaffe over Germany in the first half of 1944, a pre-condition for the Normandy landings. Earlier experience in the war had shown that an army and its supplies are never more vulnerable to air attack than when going ashore on an enemy-held beach. Thus the Luftwaffe's ability mount such attacks had to be eliminated before large Allied armies could back get into France. The Merlin engine essentially made this possible, by combining with the advanced Mustang airframe to deliver a high-performance single-engined fighter with exceptional combat range. And stumbling on that unplanned combination of engine and airframe was another great story of unconventional invention. Pushing the invention through the inevitable bureaucratic roadblocks (of not one, but two sovereign nations) required overcoming a bit of "received wisdom."
@@danielmocsny5066 The Mustang existed because North American told the British that they could build a better fighter than a P-40 under licence. The original Mustang did have a longer range than the British Fighters of the time, but it was nowhere near that of the later Merlin powered P-51s.
In addition to watching another excellent episode by Indy & the crew, I'm absolutely 'floored' by the high quality of the comments section. so much knowledge, so much technical expertise, I'm absolutely 'lost' & 'overwhelmed', to the point that I don't feel that I'm fit to be in their presence. all I can do is just keep my mouth shut, & try to keep up. I'm so proud of you guys.
@stanbrekston All I can do is agree. The TimeGhost Army shows its enthusiasm and depth of knowledge once again, and once again the poor intern commenting on military hardware is left scrambling to keep up! 😅
My dad did Home Defense and later, Intruder missions in a NF Mosquito. They used to stooge around rail lines and wait for the fireman to shovel some coal into the locomotive. Apparently, they got 8 trains that way. One time they were about to attack an He111 with a V-1 attached but were told to break off because they were over the AA gun belt. The He111 still didn't make it.
@@WorldWarTwo Thanks! That's not even half of it. I have a diary of his written at the time in Polish that needs translation. It covers his escape to the West after being a prisoner of the Soviets. Any help would be appreciated. No native speakers I know are familiar with his dialect.
It never ceases to amaze me how they could be so good at design planes and so terrible at tanks. It almost as though the disdain for ground operations that had dominated the previous 300 years in the British military establishment mindset was subconsciously driving the creative minds of the empire.
The biggest problem with British Tanks were the engines. The eventual fix, put a Merlin in them (the ground version was called the Meteor). Also the British were not that good at building aircraft, For every outstanding one they designed, they built at least two complete dud ones.
I wouldn't say the British were or are terrible at tanks... In the early years of WW2 the Matilda II tank was pretty impressive, for the mid-war the Valentine was arguably one of the worlds best tanks simply due to its reliability, and in the late years of the war, the Churchill tanks were very effective, and after that the Centurion arguably the best tank ever produced, was made.
Wrong about tanks. British tanks were built for very specific uses. The Churchill tank stopped the Germas at Moscow plus on D-Day they were used to great effect as Hobarts Funnies. Unfortunately, they were not used on Omaha. The Comet V was a match for any tank
My granda flew these in the RAF. He ended up being a trainer pilot in Canada for a good chunk of the war. Don't know much more than that sadly. I didn't get to see either of my grandparents very often,and sadly, we didn't get to talk about their wartime experiences, they've both since passed away. I do know that my granma was involved in sonar detection and had some role during the sinking of the Bismarck.
One theatre where the British ran into problems with the Mosquito was Burma. Loss rates of the aircraft were quite high, and it took some time for the Allies to discover the cause and fix it. Turns out that, in addition to the effects of the heat and humidity on the adhesive used in the plane, there was a fungus in the Burmese theatre that grew on the glue as well. The decay caused by the fungus caused the planes to lose key parts in flight, resulting in the loss of the plane.
Play War Thunder for free and grab your bonus: wtplay.link/worldwartwo
Ask them to put the blockbuster in a mosquito. It’s historically accurate I just learned thanks to you. 🥰
@@julianshepherd2038 don't stop at just the fly! Much like their namesake, the Mosquito aircraft may also transmit a type of 'parasite' that has an incredibly potent 'sleeping sickness' of its own. Hand in hand with war, nature is incredibly savage; and always creating new ways to kill things.
Sadly, you rarely see a mossie in game, for some reason it performs poorly compared to it's real life achievements. Much lesser planes (BF 110, I'm looking at you) have a greater in game performance, and far far more variants modeled, which is pretty stupid. Unless you get one of the mossie's that are currently modeled in Warthunder as part of the link above you need to be prepared for a long grind through the "tech tree" to get one. If you do get one "free", then don't expect "real world" performance.
I wish to see you covering the western sahara conflict(1975-1991) between Morocco🇲🇦 and polisario front backed by algeria🇩🇿.
good game, been playing it for years, although the grind is terrible tho.
I remember in a documentary, some old carpenter who helped build Mosquitos during the war call this plane "the best piece of furniture this country ever made"
That’s the best quote I’ve ever seen!
"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 Meyer
I love that you named him Meyer.
I was just going to post this :)
@@davidribeiro1064 Please explain, I don't understand the changed surname?
@@COIcultist supposedly, Goehring said that if the British ever bomb Berlin, you can called him Meyer (or Meier), seen as a Jewish name. They did, so some do.
@@kemarisite "No enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr. If one reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Göring. You can call me Meyer.” - Hermann...uh... Meyer, 1939
My Grandfather was a navigator on the this beauty. He’d often speak of its incredible speed and agility, thanks to its wooden design. His pilot would make him sick by nose diving the plane, and make him shit his pants when skimming the surface of the Channel with the wing tips. Didn’t get many battle stories from grandad, other than a vague mention of bombing a train tunnel on both ends to trap a German transport inside, and giving away cigarettes to wounded German soldiers in a field hospital. Regarding the latter, he intended to sell the cigs and make a cheeky profit, but his humanity got the better of him the moment he saw their agonised faces. In the end, he hated war but loved to fly. RIP Flight Officer Gilliam
@Bobb Grimley Put the aircraft into a turn, the wing on the inside of the turn drops.
@Bobb Grimley A definition of 'skim' from the Cambridge Dictionary, 'to move quickly just above a surface without touching it'. As to why, obviously to put the wind up @Kriss Jill's Grandad.
@Kris Jill Thank you for sharing your Grandfather's story. No disrespect but I'm hoping the 'wingtips skimming the Channel' was a bit of an exaggeration. That sounds foolhardy even for the most skilled pilot.
@@WorldWarTwo haha knowing grandad, I'm most certain it was! His memoirs give a slightly more modest account, if you'll indulge me:
We [grandad and his pilot Johnny] then joined 613 Squadron of the 2nd Tactical Air Force Force [previously stationed at Finmere, Oxfordshire (No. 13 OTU)], engaged in low level interdiction flights, attacking German trains, military convoys, airfields, army barracks-- anything, in fact, that moved. These missions were largely over Northern France and Germany, although once we circled the Eiffel Tower so that I could take a few photos with my trusty little Brownie camera
One of the more interesting exploits carried out by the squadron at this time was the bombing of both ends of the railway tunnels after a troop or freight train had entered, with disastrous consequences for all aboard.
Johnny and I took delight in crossing the English Channel low enough for the propeller tips to flick the surface of the sea. We practiced attacks on English fishing trawlers, no doubt to the detriment of their peace of mind.
@Bobb Grimley Short answer: they don't! I guess you could try and bank the wings, but I imagine that's not possible either. He was an old fart by the time he told me these stories, so I take it as read that they're.. what shall we say?... subject to doubt. Fun stories though!
Wooden plane means that there are no rivets. Wings and fuselage surface was very smooth compare to traditional metal constructions. In result this technology offered less drag which had it's manifestation on speed.
Less weight as well, though at the cost of rigidity
@@alexguymon7117 The density of wood compared to it's strength wasn't really an advantage compared to aluminium. Other heavy fighters, such as the BF-110 and Ki-45, had a similar weight as the Mosquito.
In the end using wood vs aluminium is still an trade off. Being mostly a question of availability and workability.
@@martijn9568 But the BF-110 was slow and unwieldy because of poor aerodynamics and not especially great engines, leaving the BF with a deficit of approx 1000hp against the Mozzy. The BF may have weighed less (6T to 8T), but the mosquito really did have exceptional aero, and with that hp advantage, proved to be a truly exceptional design.
Also worth pointing out that its successor would have been an even greater triumph, but the advent of jet power, and the fact that development wasn't seen as necessary, meant that it never got the opportunity.
So the Mosquito will stay in the record books as probably the greatest piston-engined "Fast Bomber" in history. That is quite an irony, as Germany's supposed technical superiority, along with the fact that Germany pioneered and championed the whole concept, was never able to get even close to that title. Germany's "Fast Bombers" were neither very good at going very fast, nor were they even very good at bombing.
A lot of high-performance fighters with metal wings had the rivets flush and even filled for better performance. This was tested on a Spitfire using split peas to replicate raised rivets, which were cheaper. They were removed progressively until the optimum balance between performance and construction complexity/costs was reached. The Mosquito of course, never suffered that.
USSR had wodden fighter called ЛаГГ it was heavy incomparison to nazi fighters, but armed very well. Overall it wasn't good.
Small point, the Mosquitoes bombed Berlin just before Goering's speech, not Hitler's. The sound of bombs could be heard in the background before they cut to music. Otherwise great video, very accurate.
The De Havilland Aircraft Museum in Hertfordshire, has three versions of the DH.98 Mosquito on display: Prototype, Bomber and Fighter-Bomber. It's Britain's oldest aviation museum and is located at Salisbury Hall, where the Mosquito was first developed.
That's good to know. Can't imagine many survived being made of wood and all.
Hell yeah, this is some quality intel in the comments.
@Roy Cousins Thank you for sharing!
A great place
I haven't been since my parents retired and moved away from Hatfield in the eighties. Tried to go back a couple of years ago but it was shut due to covid. Hopefully I'll do it this year along with Duxford?
My great grandfather worked in a furniture factory before WW2, during the war they transferred from building wardrobes and chairs to aircraft parts, eventually shifting to assembling Mosquitoes. He was always a fan of these aircraft, as their combat success was rivalled by their elegant design.
Even after studying WWII and related events for over 50 years I still learn new and fascinating facts in every one of your episodes. I’m constantly amazed at the world class quality of these productions. Very proud to be a member of the TimeGhost Army.
@H.C. Collier We're very proud to have such enthusiastic members in the TimeGhost Army. Thanks for watching, and thank you as always for your support.
I would also recommend Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles, especially on the Mosquito and P-47! 😃
ua-cam.com/channels/ynGrIaI5vsJQgHJAIp9oSg.html
@@WorldWarTwo Can’t wait until you guys cover the ME 262 and other German wonder weapons!
I wonder
WWII Mosquito with today's electronics and a Vulcan or avenger rotate cannon?
comparison with A10?
Fantastic stuff, Indy!
The man in the Air Ministry who consistently pushed the Mosquito project from conception to reality should be also mentioned. He was Air Marshall Wilfrid Freeman, who supported Geoffrey de Havilland against repeated opposition from 1939 to July 1941 when the unarmed bomber version was at last given official approval. The very concept of an unarmed wooden(!) 'Schnellbomber', de Havilland's take on the original German idea, seemed outlandish to most of the decision-makers of the Air Ministry. The Mosquito was known as 'Freeman's Folly' until it finally silenced the doubters with its outstanding performance.
@Neil Pemberton Thank you for the info! Anecdotes like that one really bring a lot to our videos, I can't thank you enough.
@@WorldWarTwo Thanks for your kind words. I have a great source by Anthony Furse, called 'Wilfrid Freeman, The Genius behind Allied Survival and Air Supremacy 1939 to 1945'. The title oversells it, but it is still a great book. Freeman also worked closely with Avro when the Manchester became the Lancaster, and was greatly involved with the lobbying of the US Government to put the Merlin Mustang into full production.
In WW1 he had flown vulnerable RFC two seaters in skies inhabited by deadly German scouts. By 1917 he commanded a wing of four squadrons, acutely aware he had to order men in often obsolescent planes to their deaths. Thus he knew from personal experience that in order to achieve and keep air supremacy, aircraft development had to be continuous throughout a war.
In 1917 the RFC was slaughtered during 'Bloody' April but owing to new designs which entered service shortly afterwards, the Sopwith Camel, the SE5a, the F.2B variant of the Bristol Fighter, and the SPAD S.XIII, the Allies seized air supremacy and kept it until the end of the war. Freeman never forgot these lessons.
The Air Ministry were very skeptical about de Havillands performance claims for the Mosquito despite their proven track record with air race aircraft etc. They tried to intercept a prototype 'Mossie' with the latest Spitfire and couldn't catch it!
Sounds like Freeman deserves his own documentary.
@Neil Pemberton Yes, Freeman knew de Havilland from WW1, and had been impressed, as had others, in the DH.4 light bomber that could outrun enemy fighters, a thinking behind the concept of the Mosquito. Opposition from the Air Ministry was earlier than you suggest with de Havilland declining to even submit a proposal for the 1936 spec P.13/36 which called for a medium bomber with gun turrets. His vision of a design that cumulated in the Mosquito, is what he arged for through to 1938 when in that December, with backing from Freeman, he was given a unique specification, B.1/40/dh to produce a prototype.
Would wholeheartedly recommend Wilhelm Johnen's memoirs "Duel under the Stars", the memoirs of a German nightfigher pilot.
Late in the war he pretty vividly recounts the terror of marauding Mosquitos in British bomber streams fitted with receivers that could home in on German radar emissions. Whenever they lit up their radars, within a minute or two their tail warning radar receiver would start shrieking that a Mosquito was behind them. Worse, the German nightfighters were overloaded, outdated Bf-110's that hadn't changed much since 1941, so were easy prey to the much faster Mosquitos.
Would you happen to know if it’s available as an eBook?
Edit: yes it is, just bought it.
@@MrK1kk3r - indeed it is, comes right up in a search: "Duel Under the Stars: The Memoir of a Luftwaffe Night Pilot in World War II" by Wilhelm Johnen. Adding to my to-read list, thanks all.
And yes, while the heavily-armed Messerschmitt Bf-110s were deadly "bomber destroyers" against unescorted Allied heavy bombers, they were no match for Allied escort fighters. The Bf-110s themselves required their own escort fighters! But that wasn't really an option for night fighting. The Bf-110s will inflict heavy losses on American heavy bombers in 1943, before the Americans come up with an escort fighter of their own with sufficient range to accompany the bombers all the way to the target and back. For now, the Germans just have to form up at the point where they know the shorter-ranged P-47s and P-38s have to turn back, and then have their way with the bombers. Once the Anglo-American hybrid P51D Mustang arrives in numbers with its high performance and long range, the Bf-110s will get slaughtered.
The Germans knew they had a problem with the Bf-110 and kept trying to replace it with something better but ran into so many development problems that the Bf-110 had to keep flying until it became hopeless. Not to mention that German aircraft factories will increasingly turn into bomb magnets. Meanwhile, over in bomb-proof America, aircraft development continues at a rapid pace right through the war.
Thanks for the book recommendation, going to add that on my list
@Kit Naylor Thank you for the suggestion
My Father was a "Rigger" (airframe fitter) with De Havilland from 1931 at Stag Lane until retiring as Chief QA Engineer from BAe at Hatfield in 1982. He adored the Mosquito and its immediate three or four military successors. He aways had an affinity with wood. I still have a couple of his test jobs from his apprenticeship from '31 to '35. You would think, looking at them, that he was training to be a cabinet maker. I used to enjoy watching the Mosquitos and Hornets fly during the open days at Hatfield in the sixties as a kid. Probably one of the reasons I joined the RAF in the seventies.
The Hornet was truly the best twin piston engine aircraft at the end of WW2 just too late for the fight.
Yes the Hornet does have that reputation. is it fully merited? Many tsstimonies from pilots I've read over the years indicate iyt was great. But then air crew always bias in favour of whatever equipment they fly.,
I know of no run--offs Hornet vs P61s or later so how do we know?
@@brucebartup6161 Sorry, I don't understand? A huge Night-fighter and a single seat fighter that's around 100 mph faster, there's no comparison. Are you mistaken about the aeroplane names? Just take a look at what Eric Brown, the test pilot said. He flew both.
@@johnp8131
there was a trial off DH 98 Mosquito vs P 61 . There was no similar trial of DH 103 Hornet vs anything
At least I never head of one
but you are dead right my ignorant self had forgotten that test pilot statements were available. .
Also i think that many operational plots would had experience with several types.
Sorry for all the typos ,I have Parkionson's .
sorry to have wasted your time
@@brucebartup6161 Not a problem. Just for your information, take a look on Wikipedia at the Eric "Winkle" Brown, aircraft flown list. Impressive! even if you can't trust everything on "Wiki"? Also, there are many documentaries, on Eric Brown and his life on UA-cam. Worth checking out if you haven't already?
The Spitfire gets all the attention, but the Mosquito has always been as extraordinary an aircraft. It should really get as many plaudits as the Spit.
And in fact it does........
If I win the lottery, I'd pay good money to set up shop making Mosquitoes using original blueprints (as near as is able). I think there's a market for people who'd like to own such a replica.
(And while I'm raiding the De Havilland archives, I'd see about re-launching the DHC-2 Beaver ...)
Agreed. The Mosquito had superior range, speed and weapons.
@@LordOfLightmeh the Spitfire is globally known and an icon for the British. It has been mentioned in tv shows entirely unrelated to aviation (Top Gear, QI, etc). Can't say the Mosquito is anywhere near as widely mentioned.
@@evklinken It's not as widely mentioned, but to those who know even a little about British WW2 aircraft it's generally held in higher esteem.
Best plane of the war. Best recon, the best night fighter, the best long-range interdictor, best precision bomber.
Canada made 1143 mosquitos in Downsview, just north of Toronto, Ontario, from 1942 to 1945. Today there is a museum there in the company’s compounds.
Also, Canada made some of the Hawker Hurricanes in Thunder Bay Ontario. Here, the factory was supervised by the first female aeronautical engineer Elsie McGill.
Thank you for your channel. Always very informative!
Stay safe, stay sane, be well
Thank you!
The wooden wonder that bit the Germans back!
One of my earliest memories of film was watching the Mosquito raid in 633 Squadron, that movie cemented my love of the "mozzie"!
same here mate, loved the mozzies ever since.
As an aviation guy I've seen numerous docs on the dh-98. You guys do an excellent job of sticking to what is true and relevant to the situation at the time. Great special episode!
Thank you very much, we are glad to hear that!
Your team shines again. The Mosquito has been covered by documentaries quite often, however your writers pack so much detail, and especially context, into this video that a 1 hour film would not educate to the same level as this one. Once again, The TG Army cuts through the flotsam and pinpoints the many keys to this remarkable aircraft, as they always do on any subject you cover.
@Mark Hodge Thank you for the very kind words and high praise! Our audience's enthusiasm really puts the wind in our sails week after week, so thank you for sharing your reflections on the video. We look forward to having you with us through the rest of this interminable war.
Marvelous plane, the Mosquito. I have seen one fly by many years ago. Absolute beauty. The Bristol Beaufighter was perhaps even more versatile, as it worked in every theatre of the war, whereas the Mosquito had difficulties in hot, humid climates, whereas the Beaufighter (less glamourous, slower), did its diverse jobs well everywhere
@@GaldirEonai "You're sturdy, but you're sturdy for a craft made of wood."
I was at the airshow back in 2015 I think where one of the rebuilds flew. Was a display event with a number of us in universal carriers were hooning across a field when the mossie came in low overhead. Stunning sound
I remember chatting to a Beaufighter night fighter radar operator in the eighties, and they were told never to take on the Junker 88, and corkscrew to get away from it !
The Beaufighter was also equipped with the Merlin engine.
@@bigglesbiggles1 Once you hear a Merlin you will never forget.
I remember seeing the working Mosquito in person at the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach back when it was the only airworthy example left. Truly an amazing thing to see in person.
Probably the greatest multi-roll aircraft ever.
Got to love the de Havilland Mosquito - my first ever Airfix and I've love the aircraft ever since.
Try their new generstion kits. They are fabulous.
Thanks. Great episode. My granddad was in the RAF in a ground crew in Ww2. Amazing to think that you could go from making furniture ( as an apprentice draftsman) to fixing repairs on the fastest plane in the world!..people forget how short we were for metal! Using wood for mosquitos and hurricanes was a big advantage.
Thank you!
The National Museum of the USAF has a Mosquito on display with invasion stripes painted on the underside of the wings. That specific one was built in 46 but that's a good thing for the museum because it never got shot up. love the video Indy!
2:05 the concrete molds to build the fuselage halves were an advantage to achieve high production rates.
in 3:53, the halves are outfitted with internal components before being joined, this allows much easier installation. Compare to the pictures of riveters crawling inside cramped metal fuselages
DeHavilland not only thought about the performance, he also put a lot of effort into the production requirements.
One thing I've learned from watching military channels: It's rather difficult to design a prototype plane or firearm. It's *really* difficult to design efficient production for it, and the capability for efficient production has to be incorporated into its design - along with all the other competing design features.
@@donjones4719 spot on.👍This is why whenever someone says ̈ T34 was poorly built" or "the Sherman *could* have been better" it annoys me to no end.
Dude, you are in the middle of a freaking WAR... the fact that something gets built is amazing. That they are building it by the hundreds is a certifiable miracle. And that they are any good at all is deserving of worship.
We are so spoiled with run flat tires and 20k miles between oil changes we have NO IDEA what production, or war, is about.😁
Best video ever about the Mosquito! Nobody yet has made the best video about the Jeep. There is still time. I love my Jeep!
It's nice to see another Special video on military equipment, this time on the Mosquito warplane. Such an iconic aircraft!
The last flying British Mosquito flew over my house about 2 weeks before it crashed at an airshow. Being attuned to the sound of a Merlin engine I dashed outside to see it rip overhead, boy was I surprised. What a glorious looking, sounding plane.
You do know they have got a couple of then flying again the basic took them apart and rea glued then again I'm sure there are plenty of vids on the tube think first one was done in Australia
@@gingernutpreacher of course. I don't miss the news.
I played a bunch of WWII flight sims. When I played a Luftwaffe campaign I hated dealing with Mosquitos. If the Mosquitos didn't want to engage, then good luck. I'd be playing various models of the Fw190, Bf109 the Mosquito outran me. I had needed to have position and height advantage to try and dive on them. If I didn't have these advantages, I wasn't catching them.
There's someone I watch also that does a lot of flight sims (Growling Sidewinder with DCS, IL-2 flight sims). He had done some videos with the Bf109K and on the WWII server he had going on, encountered a flight of Mosquitos. He repeatedly talked about how much he hated dealing with them.
Also, very late in the war the British trained up some Mosquito pilots to conduct Carrier operations. The intent was in 1945 to use British Carriers to launch Mosquitos and raiding Japanese ports. You know, return the favor because of 1941-1942, that sort of thing. The British Pacific Fleet had a bunch of ships, one of the largest single commitments ever by the Royal Navy, already operating out in the Pacific with the US Navy. But the war ended before these sea borne Mosquito raids were executed.
Admiral Bruce Fraser had the privilege of commanding BPF, which surely was a nice feather under his hat, commanding one of the largest single commands of the Royal Navy in a seagoing command. Battleships, Carriers, Cruisers, Destroyers, tons of ships under his command, and at war with the Japanese. They were working with the late war US Navy, so it was an unstoppable juggernaut combined.
My father, an RAF navigator/bomb aimer used to maintain that the RAF would have been better off building more Mosquitoes, and not put as much effort into building Lancs and Halibags. Of course, it would have been interesting seeing a Mosquito trying to take off carrying a Tall Boy ...
Almost forgot to mention, because it was made mostly of wood (apart from the engines and some other features), it was difficult to pick up on radar as well, making it a bit of a stealth plane as well.
Ironically enough, I am writing this while measuring tree rings.
To a certain extent that isn't true. Bomber Commands operational research section crunched the numbers over the winter of 1943/44 and found that while the Mosquito was very economical to operate, its actual utility before it was lost wasn't as great as it would appear in the night bomber role.
From page 149 of Randel Wakeman's "Science of Bombing" book:
During the period of 1 June to 15 September 1943:
Lancaster:
3.5% loss rate
3.95 tons of bombs carried on average
112.6 tons of bombs dropped per missing aircraft
Halifax:
5.4% loss rate
2.29 tons of bombs carried on average
45.4 tons of bombs dropped per missing aircraft
Mosquito:
2.3% loss rate
0.68 tons of bombs carried on average
29.8 tons of bombs dropped per missing aircraft
Daylight mosquito losses was higher than night losses since the BF109s and FW190 day fighters could catch up more easily than the slower German night fighters. The losses of 2 Group mosquitoes in daylight raids in early to mid 1943 were not particularly great, something like 3-5% based off a cursory glance at the "Bomber Command War Diaries" by Martin Middlebrooke.
A big issue was that it takes well over a year for a factory to switch to a bomber type and hit peak production. If you play Hearts of Iron 4 you see this where it takes time to reach production efficiency on a type of design. It is only with the arrival of the 4000lb carrying Mosquito there is any real merit to making them as a potential replacement for heavy bombers, but those didn't show up until late 1943 and by then it was really too late to stop heavy bomber production for mossies unless you wanted a year where very little was built because factories were trying to switch production mid-stream.
@@kellyshistory306 I won't argue with you. After all, it was what my father used to say. I think he was considering it from the point of how many air crew and engines were lost each time an airplane was shot down, not tonnage dropped. Hence my joke about it carrying a Tall Boy or Grand Slam.
*_"Almost forgot to mention, because it was made mostly of wood (apart from the engines and some other features), it was difficult to pick up on radar as well, making it a bit of a stealth plane as well."_*
Wrong. This is a widely spread internet hoax.
My Grandfather, William Bear, was the Foreman at the General Motors factory in Oshawa, where the Mosquito Bombers were made. Grandad was a fine cabinet maker. I have a beautiful jewelry box made from left over scrap wood from Mosquito Bomber fuselage. It's signed and dated by him. I have little shelves made from the windscreens. I keep my family treasures in the box my Grandad made. I have ration tickets from the war, a bullet made into a brooch, a kilt pin, a tiny tear drop made from the windscreen with my Mom's picture as a child in it, and the medal my Grandad received from The Red Cross for donating so much blood during g the war years. If the house ever caught fire, I would grab that box before grabbing my purse! Love your channel❤
When I was growing in North Vancouver BC our neighbour Doug Wilkinson was a Mosquito
pilot, I remember seeing his 2 DFC's and His Victoria Cross on his front room wall .he got the VC for downing 4 ME 109's and damaging another in a melee over the English channel.
I can't now remember were and when he got the 2 DFC's but you can imagine it was pretty stern stuff. Those Mossies were fine aircraft.
Only three canadian airmen were awarded a Victoria cross : David Hornell, Robert H. Gray and Andy Minarsky.
Fun fact: much of the wood for the Mosquitos was sourced from Vancouver Island near Tofino.
@@vincentlefebvre9255 Doug Wilkinson was English moved the Canada in the 1950's
@@bruced1429 there is no ww2 vc awarded to a man by the name of Doug wilkinson
@Bruce D Thank you for sharing about your neighbor's experience in the war.
I appreciate this video's use of sponsor footage accompanied by on-message narration. Sure, you're advertising the sponsor's product, but in a fashion that adds value to the information being covered without only referencing said product.
Advertisement can be stylish and unintrusive. Indy Neidell can be good advertising agent when needed and his clear commentary kind-of adds credibility. He might even have expertise on subject he advertises Not only as expert of subject, but product itself.
It's a shame that war thunder does not have the mosquito's historical loadout
Amazing legendary airplane. I have sat in the cockpit of one of the WW2 Mosquitos at the De Havilland Aircraft museum in Hatfield close to where they were designed and built. Young men fly in that plane and it made me very proud of them. The team there have done brilliant restoration work and they have the original prototype that when flown in tests was significantly faster the the fastest Spitfire the RAF had. The air ministry then took notice that Britain had a seriously good new airplane.
What a wonderful video. Informative and entertaining. Indy has that rare talent that allows him to inform us without being annoying in the process.
@Edward Garea Thanks for watching! I hope you like, subscribe, and please consider joining the TimeGhost Army on Patreon to help us make more episodes all the time! www.patreon.com/join/timeghosthistory
Truly a marvel of engineering! So glad you made a video about them
@tijmen willard Glad you enjoyed it, thank you for watching
Such a brilliant aircraft there is some archive footage on UA-cam of Mosquestoes doing an attack run on german shipping. It's amazing how much a small squadron of these small aircraft make huge ships look so vulnerable.
@Bobb Grimley Grammar corrections are one thing, but you could try not to be a dick about it.
@Bobb Grimley kid it's a comment section not an essay, I was just writing it quickly. Oh and did you not learn manners at school, condescension will get you nowhere, in fact it makes your comment look silly rather than informative. Just write the mistake and move on
SPOILER.
On this channel, we are still in 1943, but the grammar Nazi's are defeated in the end.
@Bobb Grimley no I'm saying be normal and informative, rather than condescending, how do you not understand that? It's obvious archive become archieve was autocorrect making your comment look silly, when you are being so rude over something that wasn't even me and even if it was why would you be rude? Especially when your sentences are really poorly thought out and childish in nature.
@@mhpjii what?
It was the first and probably most successful multi-role aircraft. Excellent video.
Thank you!
You’re excellent!
@@WorldWarTwo Yes I was very good. I have read many books on this plane and its pilots experiences. Your video covered most of the important points in only a few minutes.
It would be nice if you could do more videos on the different roles, all of which were very successful. The night fighter and marauder roles being so successful that Luftwaffe pilots suffering from battle stress, were said to be suffering from "Mosquito Panik".
@@markhorton8578 Mossies were not multi role, they were purpose built for specific roles. Bombers and PR did not have guns or cannon, fighter bombers had a max internal bomb load of 500 lb.
BAE Mosquito page.
@@hardcorehistory9165 True but that did not make it the most succesful, not by a long long way.
@@hardcorehistory9165 High altitude fighter version? Anti submarine version?
On a slight tangent Geoffrey De Havilland was related to Olivia De Havilland the actress, they were cousins. The Mossie is one of my favourite aircraft, to start with it was an under dog. Almost no one in the Air Ministry liked the idea yet De Havilland pressed on and gave them a superb aircraft. Thank goodness he did!
Which means he was also related to her sister Joan Fontaine.
@@tomservo56954 That's correct, Hollywood royalty!
@James Harris Thank you for sharing that added info. No matter how in-depth our research week by week, I'm always astonished at the amazing knowledge y'all in the TimeGhost Army share. Thank you for watching!
@@WorldWarTwo It was the unusual name that made me wonder and when that happened I started digging :). And thank you for these wonderful videos.
Thank you. I love this plane it not only preformed amazing feats, it looked beautiful
"Even local coffinmaker can fix damage done by flak cannons and machine gun"
Well, It sounded like a dark humor
Desperate times required desperate measures. No shame in using necromancy.
Driving on the outskirts of Auckland one day I heard the unmistakable sound of twin merlins.
iI guessed what it was before I could see it .
One of the Mosquito's rebuilt by Avspecs at Ardmore NZ.on its maiden flight .
Awesome That these magnificent machines are able to take to the air once again.
ever since CuriousDroid did a piece on the Mosquito over a year ago I've been obsessed by this aircraft! Keep your lancasters, B17s, Mustangs and spitfires. To me this is the plane that won the war
Have you seen Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles video on the Mosquito? 😇
m.ua-cam.com/channels/ynGrIaI5vsJQgHJAIp9oSg.html
Until you have to use a Mosquito in the tropics🙄. Glue doesn't like a hot and humid climate.
@@martijn9568 No but the "outdated" Beaufighters picked up the slack in that theater. I think the Beau's and Mossies were pretty complementary in most theaters. Both very capable planes in the right hands.
Read the book 'Terror in the Starboard Seat'.
2:28 a quick footnote here, the casein glue is relatively easy to acquire (keyword here being relatively) because casein is a basic protein found in milk that can be precipitated by just acidifying the milk (to a pH of 4.6). It is easier to acquire than other glues because it only requires milk and acid (be it vinegar if you don't have any industrial-grade acid or sulfuric acid if you have it) and the precipitated casein need to have the remaining acid be neutralized using baking soda and voilà, you can assemble wood for your De Havilland Mosquito.
But the problem of using casein glue is you put a tax on the farming industry of your country (there is roughly 30 grams per liter of milk) by using some of its output to produce glue
He didn’t mention the Amiens raid! One of the Mosquitoes finest hour. A raid designed to release resistance fighters from a prison. They had to fly at 30ft, drop their bombs which would skid along the ground and detonate against the wall blowing a hole in it. The damage can still be seen today!
There has been a lot of doubt cast about that raid. It takes nothing away from the performance of the aircraft or it’s crews but the back story and the outcome are still debated to this day.
@@thethirdman225 In which aspect has doubt been cast. Pray, do tell me more?
@@marcuswardle3180 Plenty of people have cast doubt on it. There was a book written about ten years ago by a French man from that area called J.P. Ducellier that basically says the story behind it, as you and I know it, is wrong.
As I said, it takes nothing away from the way the mission was flown or the efforts of those involved, just that the back story is wrong.
One of my favourite pieces of flying machinery of all time. Thank you for this video!
@Johnny Thunder Thank you for watching!
My Granddads Squadron flew Mozzies in Burma , a lot of the pilots were mad Aussies who loved to fly along the local water ways at below tree top height , frightening the crap out of anybody in a boat .
The Mosquito and the Bristol Beaufighter really are two underrated RAF gems
The Mosquito is arguably the most highly regarded warbird of WWII; everybody rated it, even Hermann Göring raved about it for Chrissake. How can anyone reasonably suggest it's "underrated"?
@@LordOfLight I’m going to say it was the best aircraft of WWII but not many will agree with me. So I think it was definitely underrated. So was the Beaufighter.
@@thethirdman225 Most people would agree that the Mosquito was the best aircraft of WW II.
@@tommymorrison6478 Don't tell the hordes of delusional P-47 fanbois.
@@thethirdman225 "hordes"? How many in a "horde"? A couple here and there don't make a "horde".
1927 Lockheed Vega The fuselage was built from sheets of plywood, skinned over wooden ribs. Using a large concrete mold, a single half of the fuselage shell was laminated in sections with glue between each layer and then a rubber bladder was lowered into the mold and inflated with air to compress the lamination into shape against the inside of the mold. The two fuselage halves were then nailed and glued over a separately constructed rib framework.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Vega#Design_and_development
Indy Neidell, the History Tuber we all want to be!
history potato- that's unkind
For those in the UK there is an exhibition on the Mosquito at Hughenden Manor near High Wycombe (about half way between London and Oxford).
There is also an exhibition about WW2 aerial photography.
It is a National Trust property so members get free admission.
@Peter Turner Thank you for sharing about it
And for those of us not in the UK I see there are videos - including: ua-cam.com/video/34rLz2Z9yAU/v-deo.html
Go to Salisbury Hall, just off junction 22 of the M25 and you will find 3 Mosquitos at the De Havilland Aircraft Museum, including the first one ever built.
We need episodes on Indy's waist coats and his methods of selecting them. Love it!
12:06 That bomb with a "Happy Xmas Adolf", trolling is truly something for the ages!
Built an Airfix model of one of those when about 12 years old.
Flak damage that ripped aluminium planes apart went straight through the Mosquito leaving holes but far less damage. The monocoque composite construction was incredibly strong while achieving excellence aerodynamics.
The Tsetse version used the British 57mm Six Pounder anti tank gun with Mohlins auto loader. The Six Pounder field gun was so good against German armour that it was in use throughout WW2.
Merlin engines up to around the 61 version had serious problems when over revved - conrods seized and broke. It turned out the oil pump was not flowing enough oil. Bigger pump and problem solved. These are the versions that went into Mosquito.
The 57mm was far less useful than rockets.
Wood fiber in a lignin matrix cut to a thin veneer strips or plies that are adhesively bonded with glue. Carbon fiber in a thin tape or ply in an epoxy resin matrix, which self bonds when cured. Designing with either material follows the same principals. Indy and Co - glad you used the term "composite" to describe the Mosquito's structure, that is very apt. Layering the plies in plywood, with different layers orienting the fibers in varying directions, is no different a principal than orienting the layers in a modern carbon fiber, Kevlar or fiberglass laminate. Ditto shaping these ply layups in matching molds (female mold, the raw laminate, then a male mandrel to compress the laminate during the curing process). A precursor airplane that used similar wood technology to the Mosquito was the Lockheed Vega from the late 20's into the 30's.
@Token Civilian Thank you for the added info, very interesting.
@@WorldWarTwo Wing skins and wing spars (main beams) generally have loads in the plane of the structural member. The shell of the fuselage is the same. These are perfect for "composite" materials. Where you'll see metal in the Mosquito is where you have loads / stresses out of plane, or complex loads / stresses in multiple directions or highly concentrated loads / stresses that need to be spread out into the composite structure. Think engine mounts, landing gear mounts, perhaps the splice fittings between the wing structure and fuselage structure, back up or support fittings behind concentrated loads like wing pylon mounts to the wing structure, etc.. Hmmm...exactly where they'd be if it were graphite epoxy vs plywood.
And if you'd like to make a model - go to the hobby shop. Obtain 2 thin balsa planks (1" x 1/8" - sorry, you do the metric conversion) about 2 feet or 3 feet long. Note how "floppy" they are. Now, get some 1" thick Styrofoam insulation from the home center. Cut a piece to match the width and length of the balsa. Laminate the balsa on either side of the foam, using standard children's glue. Once fully set up, note how stiff the resultant beam is (balsa on the top and bottom, as the flanges of an "I" beam, while the foam is the web). This is the same basic construction of modern "sandwich" graphite and honeycomb panels.
Greatest plane of WWII.
I cannot think of another bomber that was completely unarmed.
In Australia and the tropics, the wood did have some problems with moisture retention.
The Australian Mossies survived quite well.
De Havilland had experience of high-speed wooden aircraft, the DH.88 Comet racer (not the post-war jet of the same name) was a perfect example of this. There is a Comet flying from the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden in Bedfordshire - well worth a visit - and while nothing like the Mosquito in appearance, it's the granddaddy of the Mossie.
As a kid, I always enjoyed seeing a Mossie at airshows but there hasn't been a flying one in the UK for some years. One is being built, and there are several flying elsewhere, having been built in New Zealand. If a Merlin on song sounds great in a Spitfire, it sounds sublime when there's two of them in a Mossie. The Lancaster has more but not the turn of speed that a Mosquito can put in, and a late war camo scheme makes them look the business.
Growing up I lived a few miles from Hawarden Airport where the last flying Mossie in the UK, RR299, was based.
Every few weeks it would be flown, either for pilot training or post maintenance proving flights.
The sound of those two merlins at high speed was magnificent.
I was so sad when she was destroyed in a crash over at Barton, nr Manchester.
Still, not long ago Airbus UK (who are the inheritors of the wartime DeHaveland factory) found a complete set of Mosquito blueprints in an old building they were going to demolish. These were given to The People's Mosquito - the group who are building an airworthy mossie in the UK to fly at air displays around the country.
www.peoplesmosquito.org.uk/
@Stephen Payton Thanks for sharing your memory of that plane, it must have been quite the sight & sound. That project is amazing!
Dear Indy et al.
in the late 30th my father attended the de Havilland Aeronautical Technical School in Hatfield. There he became a life long friend with John "Cat Eyes" Cunningham. He ,or rather the disinformation spread by the Air Ministry via the press, is to blame for the still existing myth of eating carrots to achieve excellent night vision.
The Mosquito was also used for envoy flights, some of them to Sweden. These Mosquitos was totally unarmed to gain even further performance.
BTW It was also on these trips to England that my father became an also life long friend with Hanna Reitsch, as they both were glider pilots.
Thanks for yet another fantastic episode.
As always, best greetings from Sweden.
I’ve said many a time the mosquito was the best all round aircraft of WW2 great episode @worldwartwo 😁
If I could have any plane in the world, this would be it. I've always been in love with the "Mossie."
The World's Fastest Furniture!
During the war they built a composite spitfire fuselage,as a trial.using early composite materials, I worked there,they make araldite there now they also made aerolite glues for mosquito,and vampire and many other wood based aircraft.
"Wood is cheaper and more easily available“ the 1940s we’re definitely different times…
Except most of the Wood used to build the Mosquito wasn't. 80% of the wood in the Mosquito came from trees that did not grow in the UK. Where are there forests of Balsa wood trees in the UK??? Of the six types of wood used (Ash, Silver Birch, Yellow Birch, Douglas Fir, Spruce and Balsa), only two grew in the UK (the first two) and the rest had to be imported (from the western USA, Canada and South America). Mosquito production didn't really ramp up until after the U-boats were defeated.
@@richardvernon317
The wood itself was fairly complicated to source, true.
But most woodworkers did not have much to do to help in the war effort - until the Mosquito needed to be built 🙃
So it's as much about skills laborers as it is about materials.
@@richardvernon317 that wood is still not being competed for by tanks or destroyers, or small arms production.
I often find it ironic that in modern times, we've 'advanced' so much that the most basic and easily obtainable and sustainable resource, wood... has become such an elaborate and overly expensive product if worked with anything close to a decent degree of craftsmanship. What would have been an exceptionally common skill set even to the 1950's is now a niche art form.
Plastic and whatnots have their advantages, sure. But polymer has about as much soul, grace, and beauty as modern music. In other words, mostly none whatsoever.
The Mosquito was perhaps the swan song of functionality in wooden architecture, and maybe one of the last examples of the marriage between the old world and the new.
@@richardvernon317 The Australians built Mosquitos in Sydney and Beuafighters in Melbourne and had trouble getting some materials for both of them. I understand that they successfully substituted some of their own native wood for at least one of the imported woods in their Mozzies. They also modified their Beufighters to use local material, but it escapes me what they did to them.
These planes were first tested from Edsell aerodrome in Angus just outside Montrose East Coast Scotrland. My parents seen these being flown over the tpwn. They lived in the Marine Hotel Bentes Road in Montrose and this building is still standing to this day.
I got to see one of these beauties fly a few years ago. Damn' powerful airplane! The Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum here in Everett, Washington has one (the fighter version IIRC, with 4 20mm guns). Hope to see ber fly again once COVID settles down.
Oh those marvelous Mossies. Though i am surprised there was no mention of the Amiens raid. I do wonder what they could have done if they had a modern Gatling in the nose, much like the Warthog.
Indy didn't mention the most lunatic Mosquito variation, the Sea Mosquito TR Mk 33. At a time when the heaviest carrier aircraft was the 10,500lb Grumman Avenger, somebody thought we could have a sea variant of a Mosquito with twin props and weighing 20,000lb. Fortunately we had a suitable test pilot, Eric "Winkle" Brown, a man who eventually would test fly 487 differing marques, a figure never likely to be equalled. Airscapemag does a far more expansive explanation of the story of producing a miniature bouncing bomb delivery system than I ever could achieve. For our cousins across the pond who may have not heard of the bouncing bomb or operation Chastise, watch The Dambusters. N.B.England isn't the US and especially wasn't in 1943 what he called his dog is not a rude word. Brown Crops up again as his favourite plane was the Mosquito derived Hornet single seat fighter. One of the Mosquitos biggest fans Herman Goering was interviewed by Brown just after WWII. Brown was fluent in German and knew several German pilots from before the war.
I realise you colonial types pronounce words differently, but is how Indy pronounced "Tsetse" correct in the US? Also, he didn't explain the joke as a variant of the Mosquito the 6lb gun equipped one is called the Tsetse, after a particularly nasty African biting fly.
Are you kidding? I was humming the Dambusters theme yesterday! Everyone here on the correct side of The Pond with any knowledge of aviation history knows about the Dambusters. .
@@saparotrob7888 I'm very happy if you do know about it. I remember an interview with Richard Todd where he was talking about being in a film in the US where he had a copy of The Dambusters flown over and everyone thought it was a fictional story as they had never heard about it. The revisionist scum at the RAF desecrated the dog's grave and replaced the gravestone with one without his name on it.
Any idea about the Tsetse pronunciation?
@@COIcultist I always heard it pronounced "TZEE TZEE" as a kid. Then as the centuries past, I heard the English version "TEH TSEE". The Brits built it. They name it. "Good-Oh!" on Mustang!
Love it, one of his most favorite planes, it's also one of my most favorite planes as well, the Mosquito... beautiful craft.
Bascially the forerunner to all modern bombers, fast, agile and using those qualities to help it when enemy fighter arrive instead of turret farms that are not particularly effective
Source?
@@nickdanger3802 a source for what?
Yes.
This is more effective...but have you seen how cool a Flying Fortress looks?
And, with big gun modification, the A10 Warthog.
Frankly, I don’t see any modern so-called “bombers“ that are fast and agile and in-service for any significant length of time. Even the B2 is being retired. It seems to me the emphasis is on stealth and stand off launching of weapons. I don’t know exactly where you’re coming from? I wish it was true that there were these fast and agile bombers, maybe you are thinking about fighter bombers like F-16s? Even then all of these are vulnerable to missiles. The day of the Manned Combat aircraft, those days are limited, and should have been over decades ago. If only the militaries of the world weren’t so incredibly stupid!
Great piece Timeghost team! This machine was such a fantastic piece of kit! So glad you discussed the pathfinders briefly! I think the Pathfinders squadron probably deserve their own episode, or at least a sub section is a larger bomber command part 2. It's incredibly interesting that when you look into special operations in Europe at this time, as you said, mosquitoes are the aircraft of choice for their multi-role capability. And the choice to construct these planes from wood, as you said, was great due to availability and also skills necessary for repairs! These are often overlooked aspects of total war, needing to upskill manufacturing, maintenance and repair to newer technology and materials. The mosquitoes was a fantastic outside the square approach to a problem.
Just want to say, you guys have a fantastic holistic approach to history and your content. Like you say, history doesn't occur in a vacuum, neither do decision of hardware and equipment!
Thank you for your kind words!
Excellent and informative as always. Growing up in London in the sixties almost every year they broadcasted the movies about RAF heroics in WWII such as 633 Squadron, Mosquito Squadron and the Dam Busters. Could you also make a video about the Bouncing Bomb developed by Dr. B. N. Wallis to destroy the Dam in Ruhr Valley, and a profile of Wing Squadron Leader Guy Gibson. They were both interesting characters, and in terms of Guy Gibson, he was tragically killed near the end of the war (September 1944) at a quite young age of 26. Thanks as always for your great work.
@M Shahnazi Thanks for sharing. We do as many special episodes as we possibly can, so please spread the word about our Patreon to help us follow the war more closely, and make ever-more special episodes www.patreon.com/join/timeghosthistory
Dr Wallis also developed a smaller bouncing bomb for use against shipping - to be carried by a modified Mosquito (of course).
12:31 - "...and can reach targets far beyond the range of other bombers." According to Wikipedia, the de Havilland Mosquito B Mk.XVI had a range of 1,300 mi (2,100 km, 1,100 nmi). For comparison with some other Allied twin-engined medium bombers, the Martin B-26G Marauder had a range of 1,150 mi (1,850 km, 1,000 nmi) with 3,000 pounds (1,400 kg) bombload and 1,153 US gal (4,365 l) of fuel. The Douglas A-26B Invader had a range of 1,600 mi (2,600 km, 1,400 nmi). The Mosquito was certainly faster than other Allied medium bombers but its range was not "far beyond" theirs; rather, it was middle of the pack. And none of the medium bombers had the range of the typical four-engined heavy bomber except when equipped with a ferry tank. The four-engined Consolidated B-24 Liberator for example had such long range that it became the first aircraft to make routine nonstop flights across the Atlantic Ocean, and (in the timeline) will soon be responsible for closing the deadly "mid-Atlantic air gap" that the German U-boats have been exploiting to sink Allied shipping in the first years of the war.
However, the high performance of the Mosquito and its resulting low loss rate to enemy defenses raises the question of why the Allies bothered trying to bomb Germany with slow lumbering heavy bombers at all. (At least before Allied escort fighters can neutralize Luftwaffe fighters, which is a year away at this point in the timeline.) It would seem that with all the losses of heavy bombers and their large crews, the deadly economics of warfare would favor the medium bomber even with its lighter bombload per sortie. The cost of losing one B-17, B-24, or Lancanster should easily pay for ten trips in a Mossie without getting a scratch. I'd like to know who was responsible for that calculation and what their reasoning was.
If the allies had used fast unarmed bombers like the Mosquito in the place of the four motor heavies you can be sure the Germans would have attempted to optimise their fighter defence to meet that threat.
That thought has tempted me. Also, 4 Merlins will power 2 Mossies vs only 1 Lanc. The long range bomb load of a B-17 isn't great, although a Lanc could carry considerably more. Hordes of Mossies carrying 2000 lb bombloads over the Ruhr and Berlin would have sustained much lighter losses. (I think 4000 lb would cost too much speed and altitude.) *Except,* James Thomas is right. Germany would have given high priority to developing the high altitude version of the FW-190.
You're gonna LOVE the Bomber Maffia by Malcolm Gladwell (book and/or podcast) and Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles videos on the P-47 then! 👀👌🏼
@@MrNicoJac Greg's video on the P-47's true range is certainly an eye opener. If not for some bull-headed thinking by some top generals the B-17s could have had fighter protection a lot farther into their missions.
Mosquito was a Light Bomber period!!! Production of it didn't really ramp up until the second half of 1943 because 80% of the wood used in the aircraft was imported (as far as the UK built ones were concerned). The modified ones that could carry the 4000lb bomb didn't become operational until early 1944 as the weapon had a serious negative effect on the balance of the aircraft until ways were found to overcome it. In fact only 30% of Mosquito bomber sorties in 1944/45 actually carried the Cookie, the rest of the force carried either 4x500lb bombs or Target indicators (or a mix of both). Compared with the navigation equipment fitted to the heavies, the equipment in the standard Mosquito was somewhat basic, plus the Navigator also had to do the job of the bomb aimer, Flight Engineer (the fuel feed controls were behind the pilot's seat) and wireless operator. The main role of the Mosquito bombers in 1943 were Oboe pathfinding (either marking the target or marking a waypoint for bombers going to targets outside of Oboe range). Any raids that they were involved in that had them bombing targets outside of GEE / Oboe range required target marking by the Heavies or dropping bombs randomly by dead reckoning. In fact the main bread and butter mission of the Mosquito night bombers were to fly around Germany on a route between four cities and lob a single 500lb bomb in the general direction at each city by dead reckoning to keep the people in the city awake. It was the Heavies that did the real damage to German infrastructure.
My favorite airplane in all of WW2.
The guys at DeHavilland were geniuses, not only with the Mosquito and the Hornet, but also later on creating the world's first Commercial Jetliner, the Comet.
Yes, agreed - DeHavilland was WELL remembered in Germany…
I often wondered how it is that the WW2 “air superiority winning” Rolls Royce engines eventually came under the German BMW (German) ownership?
The famous DeHavilland Mosquito fighter-bomber - the fastest thing flying in late 1941 / 1942, also with a range to get to Berlin and back… caused so much damage to German war-effort that the Germans always remembered “DeHavilland” - they never forgot…
In the early 50’s DeHavilland introduced the first COMMERCIAL JET airliner (with fully powered controls, fully pressurised, cruising at 36,000feet at 490mph, much faster than any competitor) - the DeHavilland DH106 Comet - order-books filled up by dozens of countries and their state-airlines for years to come.
Then, as if someone had a grudge against DeHavilland - a Comet taking off from Rome went down over deep water in Jan 1954 (eye-witnesses heard 3 explosions - initial bomb + fuel).
Then as a repeat, another Comet taking off again from Rome went down in April 1954.
Order-books dried up almost overnight.
A psyop cover-story of “square window crack propagation” was repeated for long enough that it became a mantra.
Admiral Canaris (who obviously survived the war) - set up continuation of the German black intel - Deutsche Verteidigungs Dienst (DVD) in 1944 - HQ in Dachau.
Canaris was the man who ordered the hit on DH Comets - with the aim of strangling the blossoming UK civilian airliner industry.
Back to WW2 - Menzies (head of wartime MI6) and Frank Foley (MI6’s supposed expert on Germany) were both later exposed as a double-agents working for the Germans.
--
DeHavilland Comet is basically same airframe as the British Aerospace Nimrod AEW3 retired only in 1986 - proving the longevity of the original DeHavilland Comet (and the “square window crack propagation” as the Deutsche Verteidigungs Dienst - DVD, German black intel psyop and economic sabotage to kill off 1950’s fledgling UK’s commercial airline production).
@@agl1925nimrod was same airframe as the comet not the other way around
de Havilland already had experience with it's wooden 4 engine DH.91 Albatross. The Mosquito project started with the idea of turning the DH.91 into a fast bomber. This evolved into the Mosquito as we know it. The power of the RR Merlin allowed reduction of 2 engines which then allowed for a smaller air-frame with the same bomb load reducing production time, use of resources and costs. Engineers at de Havilland wanted the pilot and navigator to sit in tandem, reducing drag and slightly greater speed but the RAF insisted pilot and navigator must sit side by side in medium bombers. This later applied to the EE Canberra. The B47, USAAF Canberra version, had them in tandem which did increase speed.
The allies not only had quanity superiority of aircraft but their quality was pretty damn impressive as well.
It's also interesting to track the improvements in aircraft quality during the war. The Japanese for example started the war with aircraft that were often superior to their Allied counterparts but then failed to keep up with progress. By 1944 the Japanese will be facing Allied aircraft that are more numerous and of at least comparable if not superior performance across all categories.
The Germans in contrast largely kept up with the aircraft performance race, and finished considerably ahead with jet fighters and bombers late in the war, but got destroyed (both literally and figuratively) by Allied advantages of aircraft production and pilot training. It doesn't matter how fast the German jets are when (a) there aren't many of them, and (b) they can only fly for about an hour before they must land to refuel, and swams of Allied fighters are circling the German airfields waiting to pounce. No airplane maintains a speed advantage on final approach.
@@danielmocsny5066 and to give even more credit to the allies, they finished up with jets too, Britain got out the Meteor by like ‘44 and were well on their way to getting out the vampire
The Australian made Mosquitos were superior because of the better, stronger glues developed for the tropics and the use of stronger, lighter Coachwood, which is the same timber used in Australian 303s.
Due to an ice storm, I get to see a premier. Very excited. Indy and Crew teach me and my kids history!
@Brad Rowland Glad to have you with us, thanks for watching. And stay warm in that ice storm!
Great, very informative video!
One additional benefit of the wooden monocoque you didn't mention: no rivets, which did help with the speed.
What a magnificent machine the Mosquito was, and still remains to be. No wonder Goering was very jealous of it, moaning that every piano-maker in the British Isles was involved in its construction. And no wonder the British made some of the very best fighter and bomber planes in WW2 - we were crap at making pianos.
Don't care if your statement is true or not. It's funny!
@Edward Burek Goering whining ineffectually about a subject of which he's essentially ignorant… what a surprise! /s
That raid on the german radio building is so cheeky.
"Oh, you have a 10-year anniversary coming up? That's being broadcast live on radio you say? Oh dear me, I do hope nothing terrible happens to that radio building during the broadcast. That would be extremely embarrassing indeed."
You know you played Settlers of Catan too much when upon seeing "got wood?" you react with "I got wood but for 2 stones"
Or the always popular "I have wood for sheep."
Wait, did I just read a dick joke? 👀 🤔
Missed some more advantages
- No metal = no rivets (way more aerodynamic)
- Wood production means untapped work force can be used (everyone who could work with metal was already swamped with other work, woodworkers not so much)
- Wood produces different radar cross section (this does not at all make it harder to detect as some claim, but makes it *different* than metal planes, requiring more effort/training from german radar)
A wonderful "deep-dive" into an versatile airplane. If it weren't for hearing Indie's distinctive voice, it seemed like I was listening to a video by Mark Felton.
@David Kutzler Thanks for watching!
Love these videos about specific equipment developed during the war, just goes to show how far human ingenuity can go!
I just love how these aircraft where built by the common man, carpenters, joiners, basically anybody who had experience of working with wood, one set of drawings sent to a workshop and the guys would build a Mosquito, simplicity always beats over engineering.
@@julianshepherd2038 definitely not a jet engine this was a piston engine and again simplicity was in the build so many thousands of the Merlin could be built.
True genius is to make the complex simple. To have a truly elegant design, half of the work is on the front end, making simple solutions out of complex problems... that can then be replicated easily.
Indys performence is so good, it makes me actually listen to the ad read
A couple of things come to mid. Firstly, how much Britain, and the allies generally, seem to owe to 'crazy' engineers, inventors etc who don't accept 'received wisdom'. Secondly, how much Britain, and the allies generally, seem to owe to the Merlin engine: Hurricane, Spitfire, Mosquito, Lancaster, Halifax and probably a few dozen other aircraft.
@@julianshepherd2038 Yea, like 'The old gang' who designed the TOG-2 (only version ever produced is at Bovington)...
Among the few dozen other aircraft was the Packard-Merlin-powered North American P-51 Mustang, the fighter that largely destroyed the Luftwaffe over Germany in the first half of 1944, a pre-condition for the Normandy landings. Earlier experience in the war had shown that an army and its supplies are never more vulnerable to air attack than when going ashore on an enemy-held beach. Thus the Luftwaffe's ability mount such attacks had to be eliminated before large Allied armies could back get into France. The Merlin engine essentially made this possible, by combining with the advanced Mustang airframe to deliver a high-performance single-engined fighter with exceptional combat range. And stumbling on that unplanned combination of engine and airframe was another great story of unconventional invention. Pushing the invention through the inevitable bureaucratic roadblocks (of not one, but two sovereign nations) required overcoming a bit of "received wisdom."
@@danielmocsny5066 The Mustang existed because North American told the British that they could build a better fighter than a P-40 under licence. The original Mustang did have a longer range than the British Fighters of the time, but it was nowhere near that of the later Merlin powered P-51s.
The Merlin project was started by Sir Henry Royce as a private venture. He saw the future more clearly than the politicians of the day...
In addition to watching another excellent episode by Indy & the crew, I'm absolutely 'floored' by the high quality of the comments section. so much knowledge, so much technical expertise, I'm absolutely 'lost' & 'overwhelmed', to the point that I don't feel that I'm fit to be in their presence. all I can do is just keep my mouth shut, & try to keep up. I'm so proud of you guys.
@stanbrekston All I can do is agree. The TimeGhost Army shows its enthusiasm and depth of knowledge once again, and once again the poor intern commenting on military hardware is left scrambling to keep up! 😅
@@WorldWarTwo oh, you're not alone.
The Germans were so impressed with the Mosquito they tried to build their own equivalent, even naming it Mosquito.
My dad did Home Defense and later, Intruder missions in a NF Mosquito. They used to stooge around rail lines and wait for the fireman to shovel some coal into the locomotive. Apparently, they got 8 trains that way. One time they were about to attack an He111 with a V-1 attached but were told to break off because they were over the AA gun belt. The He111 still didn't make it.
@hipcat13 That is an incredible story, thank you for sharing about your dad.
@@WorldWarTwo Thanks! That's not even half of it. I have a diary of his written at the time in Polish that needs translation. It covers his escape to the West after being a prisoner of the Soviets. Any help would be appreciated. No native speakers I know are familiar with his dialect.
It never ceases to amaze me how they could be so good at design planes and so terrible at tanks. It almost as though the disdain for ground operations that had dominated the previous 300 years in the British military establishment mindset was subconsciously driving the creative minds of the empire.
The biggest problem with British Tanks were the engines. The eventual fix, put a Merlin in them (the ground version was called the Meteor). Also the British were not that good at building aircraft, For every outstanding one they designed, they built at least two complete dud ones.
It was all about engines.
The Mosquito worked because of the engines. The tanks.... well, same thing, only for them, the coin flipped the other way 😅
I wouldn't say the British were or are terrible at tanks...
In the early years of WW2 the Matilda II tank was pretty impressive, for the mid-war the Valentine was arguably one of the worlds best tanks simply due to its reliability, and in the late years of the war, the Churchill tanks were very effective, and after that the Centurion arguably the best tank ever produced, was made.
@@richardvernon317 The Brits were very good at building aircraft. One outstanding success along with two duds is a success in any industry.
Wrong about tanks. British tanks were built for very specific uses. The Churchill tank stopped the Germas at Moscow plus on D-Day they were used to great effect as Hobarts Funnies. Unfortunately, they were not used on Omaha. The Comet V was a match for any tank
My granda flew these in the RAF. He ended up being a trainer pilot in Canada for a good chunk of the war. Don't know much more than that sadly. I didn't get to see either of my grandparents very often,and sadly, we didn't get to talk about their wartime experiences, they've both since passed away. I do know that my granma was involved in sonar detection and had some role during the sinking of the Bismarck.
There is a mistake in the thumbnail: says "Mosqiuto" instead of "Mosquito".
Nah that's that the Italianees version of the Mossy...
@@Patrick_Cooper IIITSA MOSQIUTOO
Gonzalouch - great thumbnail pic! Lego Terrorist.
Working on it, thanks!
633 Squadron is a 1964 movie paying tribute to the capabilities of the De Havilland Mosquito fighter bomber. A great movie.
The movie that directly inspired the Death Star trench run scene in Star Wars
I wonder how the wooden structure reduced it's radar profile ?
The Aerospace engineer in me loved this video. Would love to see more information on the air vehicles from WWII
Thanks!
One theatre where the British ran into problems with the Mosquito was Burma. Loss rates of the aircraft were quite high, and it took some time for the Allies to discover the cause and fix it. Turns out that, in addition to the effects of the heat and humidity on the adhesive used in the plane, there was a fungus in the Burmese theatre that grew on the glue as well. The decay caused by the fungus caused the planes to lose key parts in flight, resulting in the loss of the plane.
@Nicholas Conder Very interesting, thank you.
All around just impressed with the concepts presented in the video and with its presentation
Thanks @Itruleyloveyouonyt!