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ANOPHELES DE HAVILLANDUS (Offensicus)
Characteristics: Ferocious and Aggressive Prolific. Flies great distances to deposit eggs which are both distasteful and harmful. When molested shoots unpleasant streams from multiple probisci.
Habitat: Met in increasing numbers in Axia, where inhabitants are apprehensive of the imminence of a plague which promises to cause inconvenience. (Taken from some unknown aviation technical journals towards the end of 1942.)
The De Havilland DH 98 Mosquito is one of the wonderful planes that anybody knows, anybody will want to fly, but that almost nobody remembers why is so famous. To put the things in perspective, can you imagine that you are an armaments officer today, and some plane constructor knocks on your door and says that he can build you a medium bomber, let's say a F/A-18, able to fly faster than an F-22, and with just a few pounds of metal?
At that days, a medium bomber was slow, full of machine guns, defensive turrets and a crew of six men or more. The Mosquito was designed to have two men, to be unarmed and to be faster than any fighter. Of course, everybody laughed.
From the Wikipedia:
In October 1938 the Ministry rejected their proposal, sceptical about the idea of a wooden plane and the concept of the unarmed bomber. They informed de Havilland that their contribution was best served by building wings for one of the existing bomber aircraft programs. Regardless, de Havilland was convinced the idea was sound and continued development on their own. The support of Sir Wilfrid Freeman eventually proved decisive and a contract for fifty aircraft, including one prototype, was finally placed under B.1/40 on 1 March 1940. Design and prototype construction was able to begin almost immediately, but work was cancelled again after Dunkirk in order to focus on existing types. The need for fighters became extremely pressing, and the contract was re-instated in July, but now ordering 20 bombers and 30 heavy fighters instead. The contract was later changed again, adding a prototype for a dedicated reconnaissance version that was even further stripped down for higher speeds.
Did they succeed? Well, this is some comparative data:
| Mosquito | Spitfire | Hurricane | Bf 109 | |
| Max Speed | 407 mph | 369 mph | 318 mph | 359 mph |
| Ceiling | 38,025 feet | 36,499 feet | 35,991 feet | 36,499 feet |
Impressive. Even against the Me-262, the Mosquito had a good chance to win: just five minutes of evasive maneuvers and the Schwalbe will be out of gas. After that, you just need to make the international finger salutation and go back home. The plane was made as a bomber, fighter, night fighter, recon plane, torpedo-bomber, training plane, target tug and passenger transport. In all, 7,781 Mosquitos were built. Today, only one Mosquito is operational, although it has not flown in several years. It is owned by the Weeks Air Museum in Florida but is on display at the EAA's Airventure Museum.
When I searched the FlightSim.Com database I found two Mosquitos for FS2004 and a scanning of an original flight manual. I downloaded all. One of them doesn't work to talk about, the manual pages don't fly, but the third is a good plane. It was originally made for CFS2 by Bruno "brunosk" Escaravage, then upgraded for FS2004 by the Sim-Outhouse team.
This model (BSKMOSQ4.ZIP) represents a Mosquito NFII (Intruder). These were standard NFII's, stripped of their radar and used for intruding missions over occupied Europe. At that time, airborne radar was still considered as highly sensitive equipment, and the RAF did not want to risk them over enemy territory.
More specifically, a batch of such modified NFII's was delivered to Squadron 23 at the end of 1942 before its deployment in Malta. Apart from the removal of radar equipment, the squadron had choosen to have an extra 120 Imperial gallons fuel tank installed in the bomb bay, rather than the ability to carry bombs.
This particular type of Mosquito has a lower speed, "just" 366 mph, 3 less than a Spitfire. The rest of the real data is:
Usually I can find the takeoff and landing speed data, but even the Mosquito manual does not have this information. So, we must take this from the flight simulator model.
Once installed, the plane looks well done from the outside, with all the pitots, radio wires, weapons and details. The airbrakes key opens the bomb bay, it has position lights and a set of landing lights under the wings. The only painting is realistic, matte and right about place and time. In flight it includes smoke streaks, wingtip trails and flames from the exhaust.
It's a tail wheel plane, so forget the front view. The takeoff speed is 130 knots without flaps. The plane is very reactive to the use of flaps, and even the real manual says that they are optional for takeoff. Trim down on takeoff. Once airborne it's very sensitive to elevator changes, but no so much for the ailerons. It can make loops from level flight without problems. The stall warning will be displayed, but just don't believe it.
The climb rate was 2600 fpm, and the maximum speed was 249 knots at 20000 feet, so it's slower, but climbs faster. It makes you think about the problem with finding and making realistic flight models, the problem that any version of the flight simulator behaves different... and that few simmers that will note or care about the lack of speed.
The handling is easy and pleasant, not a fighter but something similar to a modern passenger jet.
The landing is easy, extend the wheels and flaps with time, and retrim because the flaps change the flight atitude. The dirty stall speed is 95 knots, and is good to try to land slow and soft because the plane tends to jump in the touchdown. The real one had rubber blocks in the landing gear instead of steels springs or oleo tubes, so I suppose that the landing was very hard and exciting.
The panel is simple, well ambiented, with a gun sight. The lateral views are good. The plane includes its own set of sounds.
Conclusion: a wonderful plane, a pleasure to fly, not so pleasant to land, It will be good that someone will add more textures, but the one it has is very important, very representative and well done. A must be in your collection.
Alejandro Hurtado
dracosist2@cantv.net
Download here
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