Bozon

You misunderstand the meaning of “building more planes than they could use”. That does not mean that brand new planes were parked outside the production line with no one to fly them. It means that they were producing planes faster than “producing” new pilots. They were not producing enough new models in order to retire the older 109G and 190A/F/G from service - these were still the majority of the fighters force by VE day.

Yes, pretty much so. By 1945 and particularly after the battle of the bulge, there were too many allied fighters and not enough Luftwaffe to shoot at. This is why many otherwise “unemployed” Spits and P-51s were send to do fighter-bomber stuff, in spite of not being great at it, especially the Spits. As ground pounders and AAA fodder the thousands of existing Spit IX variants were just as good for that as the Spit XIV, so the latter were not rushed to replace the older IXs. On the German side the situation was reversed - they would have replaced every older 190 and 109 with D and K variants, but just couldn’t.

The remote indicator magnetic compass is misleading to read, because the needle is high above its plate. So from the typical pilot perspective you read its projection on the plane from a diagonal perspective. If the needle points to 180, you are likely to read it as 185. If it is 000 you are likely to read it as 355, etc. Move your head around in the cockpit and you will see. The way to use the RI compass is NOT to read the needle - you rotate the arrow to the direction you want to keep, then hold the needle parallel to the arrow. You will notice it is not exactly on top of the arrow because of the perspective issue, but parallel is parallel from any perspective. And yes, it is super annoying that this compass only works when you are perfectly level. The gyro compass does not drift very much, so I use it most of the time, except on long cruises where I use the above method with the RI compass.

I absolutely agree that the current implementation does not make sense. I only stated that the suggestion that the “quarter” from the manual implicitly refers to “1/4 inch”, is a too small travel to give an exact number for - the manual would have said “closed throttle”, or “full back” or something of the sort. What did the manual refer to? I don’t know. Maybe the throttles had some “free” travel where they were still “idle” before increasing boost and thus 1/4 travel was still low boost. If DCS insists that this is the correct implementation than I just ask for the “special option” to disable the horn.

I would have believed this interpretation, and even that the explicit word “inch” was omitted from the manuals and was just obvious to the pilots at the time - except that 1/4” is very little movement. If it were true it means in practice that the horn will activate only when you pull the throttle all the way back.

They were post WWII, but still cool. AFAIK they were the first twin engined planes to operate from carriers. The Israeli Air Force had a few 10s of these, 2nd hand from the French. They were de-navalized and made into land fighter bombers.

There were only handful of Spit XIV in 1944, and even into 1945 the majority of spits were versions of the Spit IX. Same goes for the 190D and 109K that were only a small fraction of the luftwaffe fighters even into 1945.

Israeli top ace Brig. General Giora Epstein passed away at age 87. Epstein was the top Israeli ace with 17 confirmed kills between the 6 days war and Yom Kippur war, of which 16 jets and 1 helicopter. All were achieved in the Mirage III and the Nesher (Israeli Mirage V). Rest in peace <salute>

That’s what I thought. Why is the horn blowing then? Makes no sense. +7 is not a low boost - it is way too much for a landing approach, and an undercarriage warning is out of place in such conditions.

What RPM an I supposed to use with continuous +7 boost?

Anyone know the name of the sound file with the horn sound? If I find it I’ll replace it with silence.

FB MK.VI is the fastest Mosquito variant - at sea level. The Merlin25 is heavily optimized for low altitudes and FB MK.VI rarely operated above 10 kft, so their absolute top speed of 380 mph at 23 kft was not slow - it was irrelevant. 400+ mph variants achieved those speeds at high altitudes at which they were meant to operate, but at sea level were slower than the MK.VI.

Luckily the Mosquito requires only few rudder trim adjustments during flight. Rules of thumb: 1. Slow speed + high boost (e.g., takeff and climb) = rudder trim at the “T” on the dial. 2. High speed + boost > +10 = rudder trim at the bottom corner of the “neutral triangle”. There are other situations, but these are the main 2 where I immediately trim quick & blind, and check the ball later.

Landing after a combat mission is the exception… The Mosquito is a flak magnet - I swear those AAA tracers curve in the air to hit me. The best and most fun bombing method is spot the target outside of AAA range, then drop as fast & low as you dare (under tree height) and shoot the bomb at the target from a close range. I say “shoot” because from such a low altitude the bomb does not develop much vertical speed and is basically tossed forwards like a rocket - I use the bottom of the reticule circle to aim. Needless to say, a delayed fuse is mandatory.

I suspect the one-engine safety speeds in that manual excerpt are with the dead engine un-feathered (and probably being the port side engine). I don’t have the manual to check the context right now. With a feathered engine you can fly significantly slower. Safety speeds with an un-feathered engine is what you want to achieve asap after takeoff, when there will not be sufficient time and altitude to loose till feathering is achieved (if it works at all). Once feathered, speed can be reduced (1-engine climb). What I do with the Mosquito is to climb very flat after lift-off and with a high boost to accelerate - when I hit “safety speed” (190–200) I use it to “zoom” and let it drop to best-climb speed, which would be around 160 mph or so. At that point should an engine crap out I can maintain control by reducing boost and shallow diving to increase the speed back to safety - which should be achievable by (at least) the altitude I zoomed up from (and while the dead prop is being feathered). (Edited for better phrasing)