Capt. Eric 'Winkle' Brown: the first Mosquito carrier deck landing

if you look at the British aircraft industry as a whole during the war years and we're about five top manufacturers javelins certainly one of them I had very high regard for them and detest him too as you look through the air shows run the world there's a certain dust of mosquitoes here's one of our top airplanes and not many around the world any attempt to restore particularly to flying stages a mosquito would be a really gift to our heritage we need something else to remind a British public how it was and what were the tools that really save the day for us and when you talk about that the mosquitoes in there believe you me first time I saw I realize they've had you all the looks of a potential winner for its time it was incredibly beautifully streamlined it just oozed parl really naturally when you have looks like a good one you expect it'll fire similarly but it exceeded all expectations and was one of Britain's three great aircraft from World War two we had to my mind three really grates a Spitfire inevitably the mosquito and the Lancaster and they all had a huge part to play maybe the mosquito more than most because it was very versatile vital night fighter bomber did the lot and when it was flown as a pathfinder aircraft and really sure this was I was a test pilot at Boscombe done this was in December 1943 and in Le January I had a call from the Admiralty saying did I think I could land a mosquito on an aircraft carrier now why did you ask me because I've done a huge number of dead landing trials and on all sorts of aircraft and I'd never actually at that time flown a mosquito and the fact has rarely seen one except in the air but with all the brash bravado of useless I said oh yes love ago that and um so before I could move any further I was whistled off to Farnborough in January mid January 1944 and the mosquito arrived shortly after me and we sat about it we were told to be ready to take it on by the landing is to say by Martin Shaw mid March 1944 so we had quite a tight time to get sorted out I had a button assigned to me own to help with any problems that were involved he was a graduate of Glasgow University so being to Scots we hit it off quite well and we realized we had quite a lot of problems the problems were these first where there was speed of landing speedom gnarly pilots notes quote the approach speed for the mosquito where this was a mosquito six but the same for mosquitos really as 125 miles an hour I was told that because of the limitations of the performance of the arrestor gear the maximum speed I must arrive at into the elastic year was 83 miles long so I had to go to the 40-yard miles long and it was only one where during that of course and they realized they would have to provide more powerful engines that's the first thing the second thing was we had four-bladed propellers instead of three and the unfortunate thing was because they were experimental propellers they couldn't be feathered so we did not want to have an engine failure on the approach under any circumstances we tried that in well up near was my boffin friend and them we found that if we're done engine fare on the approach the mosquito will invert herself within two seconds and so that was that would have been that in other words it would any engine failure on the bridge would have been fatal so it was quite a high-risk operation really but they had to be done because of highball but there's no way of guarding against him except keeping your fingers crossed so the stalling speed of the mosquito and the landing condition is a hundred and ten miles an hour so we had to bring it down we were told to eighty three the only way to do that was to hold a huge amount of power on the engines and propellers churning out huge slipstream and in other words hang on the props and keep coming in at a buck ninety miles Nam hanging on the props and when you were near the deck just cut Betances otherwise no more than three feet above the deck and you just fell onto it that works out very well in fact we went a bit better than we had anticipated in the first touchdown my entry speed into number two arrestor why was 78 miles not so we showed it could be done and I think after that everybody got a lot more confident because real obvious ly a bit in handa next problem was wait heaviest airplane had been landed on a British carrier was the dominant engine at ten thousand tonnes we were going to start the landings on the mosquito at sixteen thousand but go up to 20,000 and got to take off of 21 with full bomb load so that was quite a bit leather might go wrong we just didn't know thirdly there was the question of strength of the aircraft this is a wooden airplane arrested landings are very kind to an aircraft such structures and many predicted that either the hook would be torn out or the back end would be torn off but they only did one bit of stranding they put two extra long johns on and then fuselage to give a bit of strength and the Resta who was from one a barracuda type aircraft these were the only structural alterations that were made in fact we had a failure off the arrestor hook but not by pulling out the claw actually contacts the water the bolts holding a snapped so the clue the claw could move this way and slipped out of jail s21 and left us with a quick decision to make what I had to decide was whether the arrest of I had broken in which case I should just stay with it but because it might pick up the next one if they arrest Awad broken or if the hook had broken I better get out of it fast and this is where your experience comes and I've done a huge amount to take Lander and write a well realizes that who could broken wasn't the arrest of one had gone so without any ID to do it all I open up to full power and we went over the left side with to talk we got but we were we'd picked up enough speed to stay airborne there are people on board who said of wheels touch the water before we picked up but I have my doubts about that but um it always good stories come out of these things that was only a major problem that I had it over them for takeoff of course them we had this powerful swing to port which fortunately is away from the island one had to be a bit careful and didn't attempt to help the situation D Havilland put a tilt wheel knock on it it didn't put a mouse went out on me to put the tail wheel off on but frankly that made those were new a difference the whole objective of these trials was not really that the Navy wanted her a mosquito on deck they had decided that that was probably a step too far but I found out later and it was never mentioned the early part what the object of Wallace was but eventually I ran into Barnes Wallis and realized something was on because he was I'd been sent up to an airfield called Beckles in Norfolk and there was a squadron now and I was to demonstrate get landing to them on the airfield and I thought now why my demonstrating this to a bunch of RAF boys but then in a hangar I came across bonds Wallace moving around I asked him what he was up to and he was very reticent to talk about it at all but eventually on crus squeezing bocce our f1 bonds Wallace I reckon I found that it was all a preparation for operation high ball this was going to be sending two carriers to Japan wordage what's the mosquitos carrying the spinning ball not the dam Busters type bomb which looked like an oil can an oil drum lon um but a totally spherical bomb which would fit in the mosquito bomb be still protruding but it would go in there the idea was to make a dam Busters type attack on capital ships coupled ships in Japanese harbors and then returned to the carrier and attempt to land on or bail out of one of them they hope to recover losses because there were 24 going to take botanist operation to act of carriers carrying between them 24 and Moses the RAF were given five barracudas to familiarize themselves with dead landing now the Barracuda is probably the easiest deck landing aircraft you can ever find but they managed to pry all five of them so I really wasn't too hopeful how the outcome was going to be a but when they came back from to their ships if they came back and but then that is a story behind it but it all was canceled because they were dead worked up more ready to go but just before they were sent off the second atom bomb dropped and the whole thing was canceled

Channel: People's Mosquito

Views: 219,667

Keywords: De Havilland, Mosquito, DH.98, aviation, World War II (Military Conflict), Royal Navy, De Havilland Mosquito (Aircraft Model), Eric Winkle Brown (Author), Aircraft Carrier (Ship Type), Royal Air Force, aircraft, history, military history, deck, Flying

Id: d9Hjne0OA4w

Length: 15min 31sec (931 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 16 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/THEonlyMAILMAN]

This guy is one of my absolute favourite historical pilots, his book 'wings on my sleeves' is absolutely amazing!

p.s. the other commenter in here appears to be shadowbanned

[u/Simmer22]

Three great aircraft, Spitfire, Lancaster, Mosquito

Guess this guy has a grudge against Hawker, huh?

[u/sevtronpewpewpews]

Netflix has a pretty interesting documentary called "Memories of a WWII Hero: Captain Brown's Story", which details Eric Brown's test pilot work during that time period, and afterwards.

[u/FluroBlack]

Mossies did carrier landings. TIL...

But for christs sake can I just get a bomber variant in game already??

[u/GardenChairxD]

I thought it was cool that he said that he was at Boscombe Down for a while, I used to live near there and it just made me think that history was really close to me. Thank you for sharing!

[u/alphaprawns]

Hah, I just love the dig at the end from a Navy boy against Air Force pilots...

"The Barracuda was probably the easiest deck-landing aircraft you could ever find... But the RAF boys managed to prang all five of them. I wasn't particularly hopeful!"

Navy/airforce rivalry, some things never change!

[u/MiniMe943]

Gaijoob, 4 bladed naval variant of Mosquito soon™?