Just Flight® / Aeroplane Heaven® DH-98 Mosquito

Crossing the Dutch Coast

Employed as a heavy fighter, night fighter, medium and low-altitude bomber, maritime attack bomber, photo recon ship, bomber pathfinder, and a number of other specialized roles, Mossie did a yeoman’s job in all of them. I can pay it no higher compliment than to say that it went to Berlin – in daylight and at a time when nothing else wearing roundels could. It was produced in large numbers at several locations in Britain; in addition over a thousand were built in Canada and over 200 in Australia during the war. Production continued for around two years after the war ended, reflecting the versatility and multi-role effectiveness of the type.

As is my habit with review aircraft, I spent many hours flying the machine on long hauls. I didn’t attempt to re-create wartime conditions or emulate historic mission profiles, but did fly it high and far, loaded heavily at times. Freight hauling is my particular preference in flight-simming and I took advantage of that to get to know the Mossie in climb, cruise and descent and to make it earn its keep in the process. That’s not unlike some wartime missions, except that in my case, I didn’t get to make in-flight deliveries. She did very well at cargo work, by the way. Mossie hauls a heavy load relatively far and is reasonably fast, even by today’s standards.

I had a long-held misconception of WWII era aircraft that has slowly been dispelled as I’ve become familiar with some of them in the flight simulation environment. I suspect that this fallacy is not uncommon. I believe many of us think of Mosquitoes and Spitfires and Mustangs and Bf-109s as sleek powerhouses that played their deadly game in the skies of Europe, defying the law of gravity at will. Well, that’s only true to a point. In every type I’ve flown, above a certain height they become tentative and almost sluggish, venturing into a lonely corner of the performance envelope where engine power is marginal despite the best efforts of the superchargers and where the stall is not so very far away. These charging thoroughbreds that loop and roll and climb like an angel late for dinner can barely manage a climb at all as they get near the service ceiling. The propellers and the wings and the engines are all operating in a region where they are simply at their useful limit.

Barnes Wallace’s Highball Bouncing Bombs – Intended for Naval Targets
They Rotate…!

Sure, they’re going very fast, thanks to the benefits of that nemesis of student pilots - who might be able to define it for the exam, though probably cannot - but who certainly have never experienced it. It’s True Air Speed. It’s magic – going very fast and going very slow, all at the same time. At 37,000 feet, the Mossie, and all the rest of its ilk were not the snarling beasts that they could be in a dogfight 3 miles lower. Instead they were clawing at the air in an attempt to stay up there. If turns or climbs were called for, they had to be gently applied, carefully done.

Mosquitoes could go either far or fast, but could not do both unless they went very high. That’s not novel or unique to this type, it’s de rigueur, enforced strictly by the rules of science and engineering. They were not, as many think, vastly superior in performance to the German fighters of the day. They were fast enough, however, to be more or less immune. The dynamics of intercepting an aircraft with another of similar performance has much to do with luck and being in the right place at the right time. Add to the German’s difficulties the primitive state of the sensors of the day and primary reliance on the Mark I eyeball and you have an almost insoluble problem for the Jerries. By the time you know Mossie is in the neighbourhood, you can’t get near it in time. It happened over and over again, and the Luftwaffe never really cracked that nut.

Photo-Ship, Checking the Fjords! Smile, Tirpitz!

Downloading and installing all three packages into both versions of Flight Simulator was straight-forward, predictable and painless. There were literally no issues.

The external models in this package are just excellent. The various types are highly detailed and look good, even up close. There are some of the faded, dinged, stained and scratched textures that contribute to a feeling of reality and those are good. The main landing gear details deserve special mention – they are quite well done. Someone spent a fair amount of time at that.

                                         Main gear details