Jetrader - November/December 2008 - (Page 29)

the north and south of the U.K., similar to the German system used during the blitzkrieg. With progressive improvements in the radar bombing aid and aircraft performance, ground radio navigation aid was eventually eliminated. The aircraft were also employed as a pathﬁnder force with top crews who laid the aiming point ﬂ ares for the heavy bomber stream. The night ﬁghter version had four 20 mm cannon and 10 cm radar; with its range increased by a fuel tank in the bomb bay, it accompanied the bomber stream to hunt down the Junkers 88 night ﬁghters. To counter the Junkers’ radar, rear-looking radar was eventually ﬁtted to signal the release of chaff to jamb the attacker’s radar-return signal. In 1945 the jet Messerschmitt 262 night ﬁghter was equipped with radar and the capability to ﬂy higher than the Mosquito to silhouette it against the burning city below. Nine Mosquitos were shot down in one raid. A U-boat buster version had a 57 mm cannon in place of the four 20 mm cannons, plus eight 60 lb armor-piercing rockets. The two Costal Command squadrons sank eight U-boats as they ran on the surface from French ports on the Bay of Biscay, and numerous small ships such as mine sweepers were also sunk. Exactly 900 lbs of amour plating protected the under surface and engine nacelles from ships’ anti-aircraft ﬁre. It was the ﬁghter-bomber night ﬁghter and long-range intruder version that eventually proved to be the best of all. Some versions with a pressurized cockpit had an operational ceiling of more than 43,000 feet and a speed of 370 mph, and a nitrous oxide injection could boost the speed another 47 mph. The famous daylight rooftop raids conducted by the Royal Air Force’s Number 2 Group against the Amiens prison in France and the Gestapo Shellhaus records building in Copenhagen caught the imagination of the war-weary British public. Around 1944, when I was 13, the searchlights were swinging around trying to pick up any night intruders visiting the town (Brighton). I would stand in the garden to see the ﬁreworks if the Bofors 40 mm guns should open up with their tracer shells. The searchlights found a Mosquito, which then banked sharply and disappeared out to sea. A minute or so later, there was a clump of tracers followed by a point of ﬂ ame which rapidly became a ﬁreball erratically plunging down, with orange-colored smoke illuminated behind. All of this happened in complete silence, followed by the familiar note of Merlin engines from the returning Mosquito. Did you know the Heinkel He 178 was the ﬁrst jet airplane and ﬂew in August 1939? It had wood wings and an all-wood jet ﬁghter—the He 162—was in production by 1945. It was built by unskilled workers—mainly prisoners. By the end of the war 116 had been delivered to the Luftwaffe. REFERENCES: • • Ian Thirsk; de Havilland Mosquito, Volume 2; Crécy Publishing Ltd. 2006 Ferenc Vajda & Peter Dancey; German Aircraft Industry and Production; SAE International 1998 www.uboat.net/allies/aircraft/mosquito www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/de_havilland_ albatross Numerous other Web pages for cross checks • • • 383166_ITC.indd 1 7/28/08 7:13:07 PM Jetrader 29 http://www.uboat.net/allies/aircraft/mosquito.htm http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/de_havilland_albatross http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/de_havilland_albatross http://www.itca.co.jp

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Jetrader - November/December 2008

Jertrader - November/December 2008 A Message from the President Contents Calendar/News Q%2BA: Richard Anderson Building a Strong Foundation Post Prague Aircraft Appraisals From the ISTAT Foundation Aviation History

Jetrader - November/December 2008

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