Abbottsford 2015 and The Mosquito (#2)

A much improved show this year with a full U.S. presence including the navy super hornet display as well as the F-22.

Much to my surprise the Raptor was parked at Abbotsford. As far as I know, that's the first time the Raptor has touched ground in Canada. There was a Friday night 'twilight show' in which the Raptor performed as well as the full Saturday and Sunday shows.

I attended Sunday-today. More than a little sunburnt as well.

A little background on the Mosquito, the only second flying Mosquito in the world. Unlike the You Tube video I posted a while back of the N.Z. (U.S. owned) bird, this was a restored Mosquito. The N.Z. is a 'new' Mosquito built to spec from the ground up. (they are building two more new ones in N.Z. as we speak).

This Mosquito was built in Britain. Seven or eight were sent over as 'trainers'. They had a second set of controls in them and were intended to train pilots to fly the Canadian built Mosquitos in WWII. There were approx. 1,000 built in Canada and flown over the pond for the Brits.

One poster on the N.Z. thread who had trained on both simulators that the P-38 was faster than the Mosquito was mis-informed.
The Mosquito was capable of 500 MPH at around 28-30K. Cruising speed was 300. This makes sense as the wooden frame was a damn sight lighter and twin Rolls Royce-Merlins packed a serious punch. Might have been a tad faster than the P-51, depending on altitude...

This Mosquito was restored in Victoria, B.C. and is parked in Vancouver International in it's own custom hanger. It was converted back into the standard single set of controls and first flew in June, 2014, approx. a year after the N.Z. bird.

I gleaned that this Mossy is insured for $6 Million and If the Brits get their knickers in a twist that the only British Mossi is in Canada, they could get twice as much from Her Majesty's Gov't to buy it back....

I conned my way into the cockpit for a few I-phone picts and never having used it before, not to mention it was too bright to even see the screen well, I took several shots of the cock-pit and will post them if they turned out passible and I can figure out how to get them on ATS from a damn telephone &^*%$#*..

More on the Mossi can be gotten at gainingaltitudedocumentary.com

The F-22 display was slightly different that there was no minimum radius turn, but at the end, on the final pass he went vertical and kept on going a good 45 to 60 seconds and was out of sight except for the two 'stoves' being lit up.... Awesome.

All in all, a fine day...a very happy camper am I...

Lovely old bird. especially liked the variant with the AT gun attached used to do anti U-boat missions.

Pretty remarkable that they managed to bolt that huge gun to an entirely wooden airframe and it still functioned perfectly. Personally I would have expected the whole gun assembly to have flown backwards at a high rate of knots on the first test firing lol.

Am I as a Brit peeved that the only Mozzie still flying is there? Hell no! You guys are welcome to it. As allies I respect the sacrifices made by all so I can sit here and type this in English and not German Just the knowledge there's still one around will do me fine

Hope you can get the pics up

Peace,

M.

a reply to: murlock

The whole plane is a surprise. The right hand seat is about 18 inches back from the pilot's. The second crewman must have functioned as a navigator/bombardier. He had to crawl into that plexiglass(?) nose to do his job. Not a comfortable location...

I was looking to pay for a ride in a P-51 for my 65th birthday coming up,500 for thirty minutes. I offered the owner of the Mosquito a similar deal, he wasn't the slightest bit interested....

Sounds like it was a good show. Maybe if I update my families passports we'll hit that one up next year.

a reply to: Sammamishman

Passports or 'enhanced drivers licenses'. Either will do.

I have a 'fast card'. The truckers' version of Nexus.