So You Want to Fly the Wooden Wonder
by bozon

These are basically all the heavily used Late-war arena planes. Take comfort in your ability to outrun Zekes, N1K and Hurricanes. But hey! you do have that flame damper on your exhaust tubes. When you fly at night, they can't see the sparks! How cool is that?

It is not all that bad for one reason: E retention. The Mosquito seems to be holding its speed very well. High mass and a very clean airframe do count for something. If you dive to high speed, most chasing planes will bleed their speed faster than you do. So, for a little while you can pull ahead or at least make this a surprisingly long chase for them - enough for a wingman to clear you, or to take your pursuer to a remote place where you can show him some of that pilot s#!t.

Avoid cruising between 9k & 11k. Performance drops in this range.

Climb: With 50% or less fuel on board (ie, always), you break the 3000 fpm line without WEP. That is decent for any fighter (see, I'm used to jugs so this looks like a lot to me). The beauty here is that even if you climb at 200 mph, you still make 3000 fpm. The Mossie really excels at high speed climbs. Basically, unless you DON'T want to get anywhere while climbing, you can always set you climb speed to 200 mph (IAS). Saves a lot of time in Jabo runs and you are always at maneuvering speed in case you are bounced. Load the plane up with 4*500 lbs and 50%, set the climb speed to 200 and you still can climb at 2750(2500) fpm on WEP(without), covering 3 1/3 miles per minute. Within 2.5 minutes of WEP climb, you are at about 7000 feet and better turn off WEP since it will be ineffective till about 12k. If the target is far away, don't bother with the WEP and climb even shallower. Climbing 2000 fpm, mill power, you can cruise at 240 mph indicated (250-260 true at typical alts) while doing so, and that is WITH fuel and bombs.

Dive: Magnificent! No I'm not being cynical, truly magnificent. The dive acceleration is good enough to notice you pull away from most pursuers. The only problem is the low safe-speed. Stress sounds start at 440 mph, vibrations at 500 mph and at 540 mph you'll loose elevators and ailerons. Thanks to the great accelerations, this comes surprisingly fast. Even before that, if you pull out too hard, you'll loose plane parts. This is a slight problem in JABO since it forces you to aim and release fast. Also, starting too high and fast will force you to release from high altitude.

Zoom: Magnificent again! The high speed E retention, high mass and good climb combine to make this plane one of the best zoomers from high speed. It also means that when you dive bomb, you can zoom back up without much E loss. You can really prepare a nasty surprise here when you zoom up into your opponent poking him with your devil's guns.

Turn: Bad, especially the turning circle. It seems that at high speeds, the E retention is good, so you don't dump speed fast enough and when slow, even with flaps, the turn radius is quite large. Also, you need to watch out of the boogie man. When you just think about pushing the plane a little into the stall, the boogie man will come and kick your arse, switching you head for your butt, throwing you into a nasty stall. This is one of the benefits of having your center-of-gravity miss placed.

Roll: Mixed. Not impressive at slow speeds, pretty nice at mid-high speeds. Good enough to work with.

Range: 543 gallons. That's right 543. That is 2+1/3 full 110s and 35% more than P-38. The only fighter to beat you by a hair is the P47-N with absolutely ridiculous 550 gallons (for 1 very hungry engine). Why do you need that much? You don't. You are not flying to Berlin. At MA settings you get a little over 17 minutes per 25%. Taking 50% will give you 35 minutes at full power. Do you need more? If you want to save, fly on "normal" settings in the E6B - that will give you 24 minutes and a range of ~125 miles (per 25% !) cruising at ~315 mph. That is almost infinity.

Another viable option is 25%+DT fighter mode. The DT give you 24 minutes on full power to get to anywhere on the map. You have the 17 minutes of fuel left to fight. When the E6B indicates 3 minutes left, RTB at "normal" settings. You’ll have 5 minutes of fuel and ability to cover a full sector at over 300 mph true. Go lower settings to get even farther.

High speed, long range cruise is your "thing". The Mosquito was the only bomber that had to slow down in order for the escorts to keep up. Use up your fuel to the max and don't carry too much of it. The difference in performance is significant.

Guns: 4 Hispanos in the nose with 175 rpg. Say no more. 175 is not as much as it sounds. Fire short bursts. One short hit is usually enough.
4 303 pea shooters: very fun for shooting chutes. The other use is to annoy enemies with the sound of hail storm on a tin roof (and as effective). Near useless most of the time.

Forward visibility is excellent. If you set the "forward" head position slightly up and close to the gun sight you can pull very good deflection shots. You can get an almost "no cockpit" view by going full forward. You won't have the gun sight to aim with though.

Aiming is incredibly poor. With every correction the nose swings from side to side making sniping very difficult. I attribute this to my navigator/bartender sitting too far back.

Chapter 2 - (Mis)handling the Mosquito: Careful, they bite!

Counter rotating props? Bahh, too complicated for carpenters. Stable platform? You mean training wheels for beginners. Combat flaps? RAF do not need no bloody flaps, but you'll get small ones just for the ladies.

By now you must have heard or experienced the dreaded mosquito stall and flat spin. Two factors combine to create it: Very strong left yaw from the props and the aft center of gravity that makes your arse want to overtake the head. In this chapter I will attempt to give a few advice on how to die with dignity - that is by bursting into flames or by bleeding all over the cockpit, but not to spin and crash.

Combat Trim: In Yiddish that means "death by your own hands" (and make you feel guilty). Extreme care should be used with the combat trim. Against what it is supposed to do, it does not trim you to level flight, but leaves some pitch up (or tail heavy... surprise surprise...). If you are trimmed for high speed, but got slow and you turn it on, hold on tight to your panties.

If you leave it on, it will keep increasing your AoA even if you do not pull the stick and push you right over the stall edge. Once you stall, the airspeed drops to zero and CT will trim you "full-up" making "stick forward" response ineffective.

I recommend it is used for rough trimming - turned on for a second and right back off. Never turn it on while you are pulling G.

Rudder and Yaw: The plane has terrible yaw instability. Push stick forward and it yaw hard left (ball goes to the right), pull and it yaws to the right (ball left). To get a good gun solution you need gentle corrections and no jinks which will set the pendulum in motion.

At slow speeds the difference between right and left becomes significant, to the point where you can't roll or yaw to the right. Good rudder trim can help a lot here, especially if you use a gawd awful Logitech twist stick that often response only half way to the right $#%@#!. If you get into a slow speed fight, especially rolling scissors, try to make it a left rolling fight.

Kicking hard left rudder at near stall speeds will send you into the mosquito famous flat spin. The P38 can do a nice quick flip at the top. The nose drops, swings a little and you gain control. Try it with the mosquito (to the left) and the nose drops, then the heavy tail wants to come around too, swinging you 360 yaw rotation and leaving you in a deep stall pointing at the sky again. Try it to the right and do it in slow motion (if at all). BE VERY CAREFUL IN HAMMER-HEADS TO THE LEFT.

In the real thing, pilots said you'd be just fine by using differential power on the engines. Most of us do not have dual throttles and if you try to shut down one engine while stall fighting, prepare to enter a world of pain.

Take offs: Pretty straight forward. Pick up some speed, raise the tail, pull gently and feel the heavy tail wagging the dog. Remember that feel when you stall fight.

Landings: Surprisingly tricky for a silly reason - you are too aerodynamic and can't slow down. Don't come too steep and use a lot of skidding to get below 200 mph. Here, your flaps pop out and the gear will help to slow you down. As you go below 160, beware of the wagging tail and the sink rate that increase rapidly. Always land at full RPM to help slow down. In feathered engines landings you can easily run out of runway.

Accelerated stall: We all know the drill - enemy just outside the gunsight, you do a quick hard jink and pop him up. Works like a charm in silly planes like the F4U and Typhoon. We won't have that with the mosquito; it's not dignified. To prevent you from doing that, the heavy ass of the mosquito has been designed to slap you every time you try it. Jink hard and call yourself butt-head, because you have just flipped tails for heads like a coin in a football game. You also got yourself into a deep stall, usually with a left spin (read further).

Slow speed stall: Never stall with your nose high above the horizon. The heavy tail will get you into what is known as "deep stall". That is when the entire aircraft is stalled and falls belly-forward, without allowing the airflow to resume normal conditions on any control surface. Often, the engines yaw will add a left spin component. Since the tail is too heavy, it is very hard to get the nose down and turn it into a forward dive. Care is advised when using flaps as they add pitch up and allow you to get deep into the danger zone. Do not get stopped in midair with the nose up.

Recovering from deep stall / flat spin: Quick reaction is vital. Once you feel the plane start yawing to the left un-controllably, react immediately:

If you respond quickly and act right, #1 should work to get you out in 1-2 seconds. In certain very extreme cases the wild stall can be used as a defensive maneuver, so this is not all bad. Mostly bad, somewhat very bad and partly down right awful, but it has its dweebish uses. This will be covered in the next chapters.

Chapter 3 - Attack of the Mosquitoes: It's Da Bomb!

JABO. Some people think it is an abbreviation for "Just, Another BOmbing Attempt". Yes, I know, they missed the "Attempt" in JABO - that's because they don't do it correctly. You might think: "yah! the mosquito was known as a bomber and as an attack plane. It must be good!". Perhaps, but most fighter-bombers will carry more ordnance than you and dive bomb better than you. The Typhoon, if it gets to some alt and speed is almost unstoppable, carries the same 2000lbs as you, has hispanos to strafe and much better chance to get away after the deed. The P38 will carry 2000lbs and top that with 10 rockets and is somehow faster than you on the deck without the ord. Make sure to shoot at any P38 you come across just for this reason (friendlies also). P-38 has no speaker in the ceiling though. The Me110 will carry more ordnance than you and has better guns for strafing. It too has no speaker in the ceiling, so we maintain superiority there. If HTC give us the Tze-Tze with the 57mm gun, then we'll see some real barrel envy.

Just a side note about the 110: With the two engines and a crew of 2, you might think of it as a German version of the mosquito. This is entirely wrong. Little known fact is that Willy Messerschmitt designed the 110 to be crewed by old German married couples. They sit back to back so they don't have to talk.

In the blabber that will follow, I will attempt to give some advice as how to make a successful dive-bombing attack run in the Mosquito VI and take the long route to the tower by actually landing the plane. Other attacks (NOE, de-acking etc...) will be covered in future chapters. We start on the ground:

Load out options: Guns - always take the large ammo package. If you are worried about weight and not worried about hit %, then shoot away the excessive load of peas through the 303 pea-shooters. Personally, I never bother, but will thank HTC if I'll be able to leave them home. They do come in handy on rare occasions.

Bomb Bay - You can choose between the 500 lbs and 250 lbs. You will hardly feel the difference on the climb out so you might as well get the big ones. I often take these even if I intend to go A2A, just in case I pass by an enemy GV of base without finding a fight.

Wings - Here you can choose between a pair of 250lbs, a pair of 500lbs (again, no real dilemma) or 8 rockets. Some say that 5 rockets are the equivalent of 500 lbs. I really don't know and generally I feel that they are less effective than a big bomb, so that is usually the two 500lbs for me.

Fuel - 50%. No more, no less. Sometimes, if the target is close, 25% (17 minutes mil) will do. Remember, 50% = 34 minutes at full power. You won't live that long anyway.

Setting up the views: The mossie has great views for attack runs. The two most useful are: Forward-Down, which you set to be as far forward and up as you can, so you can look down past the nose (laying on the dashboard) and Left-Forward-Down, which you set so you peek down through the trapezoid window between the nose and the engine with your cheek against the glass. The Right-Forward-Down view works also, but is not as good.

Climb-Out: Your auto-climb default speed is 170 mph. You might as well climb at 200 mph since you loose almost no FPM. If the target is far away, I set an even higher speed (command is ".speed 200"). See the Climb remarks in Chapter 1.

The target altitude is at least 8k above base alt (can be displayed on the map). The reason is you want to arrive higher then the acks and high enough so planes climbing out of the attacked field will not just pull up and take a shot at you. You also want to void cruising at 10-13k. See the speed chart at HTC:
http://www.flyaceshigh.com/ahhelp/models/mossie6.html

One important note: You want to get to the designated alt at some distance from the target. Leave the last miles for picking up speed. If you arrive at 200 mph you might as well drive a Lancaster - Mosquitoes come with a thunder! No reason for you to reach at less than 330 mph (350 is even better). In practice, the idea is to come so fast that you get to the drop before anyone is quick enough to get his guns on you. Since you climb at high speed, you won't need to accelerate for long (level out with a heavy jug and see how long it takes to get to just 300).

Passing the time en route: While your Navigator/barman/DJ is entertaining you, this is a good time for some intel. What do you want to attack? You have few bombs, so you better make them count. Right click on the target field in the map and select "AXXX Status". There you can check if the VH/Dar/Ammo is up. Let’s assume we choose the VH on a small field. Right click anywhere on the map and choose "clipboard maps". On the pull-down menu, select the small field.

You will now do what you haven't done during 12 years of school - homework. Learn how to find the VH quickly by setting up directions from large to small: "On the opposite side of the runway from the big hangars platform, the only road diagonal to the runway, the extreme-most structure". The maps are set so N is up. If you come from E to W you can imagine how it would look - the VH will be on the opposite side of the runway and to the left from the center. At the critical moments of the attack you want to keep you SA up, assessing threats and planning the escape, not flying around trying to find the target structure. Also, choose your salvo now (".salvo X"). For hard targets its better to drop at 2. For soft, use 1.

If you are already familiar with the layout or finished early, this a good time to talk some smack on channel 200.

Ingress: I always thought the "Ingress" was a name of a Swedish lady, but I was wrong. A Swedish friend of mine, whom I trust, says it means "in pants" as in soiling yourself.

Remember? You come with a thunder, tearing the skies at 350 mph (or more!). If you need a little more speed, shallow dive a couple k feet (even if it’s the 10-13k zone). Keep your head on a swivel, look for enemy planes. Are they engaging you? Will they be able to catch you before the drop? Will they be a threat after? Most important: What is the best direction to egress?

Locate you target from as far as possible (homework, remember?). The Forward-Down view will come in handy. When you get near, I prefer to place the target in the Left-Forward-Down view, you can track it there till it’s almost below you - then it will be the time to attack.

When you feel that you will get to do the delivery, select the bombs. Now this part is confusing to some people. The wing bombs show as "B50" in the counter, the bay bombs, on the other hand, show as "B50" in the counter. But remember that this is the Mosquito and it’s British, so everything is reversed: Your tail wants to overtake the nose, the ammo counter is on the left for the MG, but on the right for the cannons/bombs, and you select the bay bombs before the wing bombs - opposite of how you'd like it.

Open the bay doors. Even if you think you just want to use the wing bombs, open the bay. The only thing more frustrating than hitting the release button on a perfect setup and seeing the "Doors are not open" message, is sitting on the toilet after you did your business, realizing you didn't check if there's any paper left.

The plunge of death: Do we want to survive? Yes we do. If we didn't, we'd be flying a Typhoon and lawn-dart into the target, even though a Typhoon has 10 times better chance to come out alive. Therefore, and this is soooo basic, we make the attack in the direction in which we want to egress (more or less). You will pick up great speed, which the mosquito is very good at keeping. What is the point of running in the wrong direction and blowing it all away in a sharp turn? In other words, if we want to escape in the direction in which we came from, we fly PAST the target and then dive to attack. Usually, backward is not the best direction, but a little to the side. Also take into consideration the number of acks on the way. If the target is on the edge of the field, attack in a direction that will take you away from most acks and not across the entire field.

Trim a good measure forward, but not all the way - the bottom of the "L" is a good guess. Under no circumstance use the combat-trim during the dive. Start with a steep zoom climb (assuming you are not at immediate danger from fighters). This is why trading some alt for speed on the ingress is not so bad. You want 2 things: more alt is more time to aim before you drop into acks range and slower initial speed will give you more time to aim before the plane falls apart in the dive. If there are no threats, you can also pull throttle back, but if there is, you want to save every Joule of energy you have. If you kept the target in the Left-forward-down window, this will be a sort of high wing-over. Don't stall, but complete the maneuver at ~200 mph and in the desired direction, pointing closer than the target. You are now diving steep towards the target and need to work fast or fall apart. This will happen much quicker than with most other planes - what an acceleration!. If you come in too high, you will be forced to release from high altitude. In that case you have to throttle back in the zoom climb and the dive.

Roll your wings level. The ball will be useless, so a quick look forward-up at the horizon will tell you your bank condition (angles, not dollars). Pull the nose steadily past the target. When it looks good, hold for a split second and release. You can quickly hit the switch and release the other pair of bombs too, though the delay hurts the accuracy and your health. Immediately after release, start to pull up. If you hear the creaking sounds, pull up gently but immediately, before the plane breaks. It is usually not recommended to pull straight back up, even if there are no enemy planes. Use the built up speeds to clear the acks as fast as possible. Do rhythmic weaves, to prevent the acks from leading you and use the opportunity to check 6 and general SA.

Just one note about avoiding acks: You are a big target and a vulnerable one. Don't mess with acks; get the hell out of there. The quicker you release the bombs, the higher you are and the longer the acks need to lead you. De-acking tips will be covered in another section.

The Egress: A successful JABO run is one in which you got to the target, released the bombs and got out of danger. If you want to go fighting afterwards, that's your problem (highly recommended), but the mission was accomplished when you were out of harms way. Often at this stage, you'll have someone on your tail. You just came out of the dive, going level, or shallow climb at full steam (already headed in the right direction!).

Zooming up and starting a fight is one option (a fun one), though dangerous in a crowded environment. The other is to get away from the crowd and then turn to fight at your leisure. If you choose the second, do not climb, and maintain your speed. Other planes will bleed theirs faster then you and for a while, you'll pull away or keep the distance. You'd be surprised how hard they'll find it to catch you even though their planes are much faster, on paper. Add a very shallow dive if you need to extend the chase. If they gave up the chase or a friendly cleared you, congratulate yourself on a job well done and go get killed in A2A combat. If not, read the next chapter.

If its a truly slower plane (there are a few) that gives chase, start a shallow, high speed climb. Your climb rate at high speed will be much better than theirs. Then you can turn and attack with E advantage.

Supplements: Some issues I left out, as well as other bombing methods will be covered in a yet to be written chapter.

Chapter 4 - Dogfighting in the Mosquito: Balsa vs. Aluminum

Ever noticed that "F" in "Mosquito FB.VI"? That stands for "fighter" (or is it FUBAR?). The Mosquito is a fighter. You'd think that the speed and the 4 Hispanos in the nose are a big hint, but some people still don’t get it. Better known as the best and most advanced night fighter of WWII, the mosquito also had a lot of use as a hunter on daytime "ranger" missions and occasionally even as an escort fighter.

Just some legal stuff to get out of the way: If you look closely below the canopy on the side of the fuselage you'll find the following printed in black fonts and marked by a box frame: "Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined that Dogfighting the Mosquito May be Hazardous to Your Health". A sticker on the back of the pilot seat saying: "Danger: High Frustration Levels" and another at the wing root: "Do Not Sniff the Glue". Better take these seriously, since a lot of Mosquito pilots ended up on the glue as an escape from the harsh (virtual) reality. If you are 18 years of age or older, not pregnant and don't mind an addiction to adhesive substances, please read on.

So, how does an armed balsa fare as a fighter? Let us count the pros and cons:

Pros:

1. Best air-air gun package. No convergence issues, excellent ballistics, enough fire power to take out anything in very short burst, adequate ammo load. Plenty of 303 ammo for chute shooting practice.
2. Very good energy retention - For playing the E game and high speed passes.
3. Decent roll at medium-high speeds.
4. Very good frontal view for deflection shots.
5. Flame dampers to avoid detection in the dark.

Cons:

1. If you pull a little too hard in high speed turn - you enter a spin and crash.
2. If you hit hard left rudder while slow - you enter a spin and crash.
3. If you stall with the nose above the horizon - you enter a deep stall and crash (sometimes while spinning).
4. Very good E retention, with no good way of loosing it.
5. Yaw instability makes aim difficult.
6. Poor roll rate at slow speeds.
7. Big target.
8. Flammable target.
9. Not so fast target (being invisible at night does have a cost).
10. Pieces of meat in the cockpit seem to be favorite part of the target.

As you can see, most Pros are about offense and most Cons are about defense. What does that tell us? Better stay on the offense, duh!

Offense: How to make holes in Aluminum

If you are the "sniper" type, you'll have no trouble adapting to the mosquito. This plane really complements your type. Keep advantageous position by managing your E and punish the opposition for any mistake with the accurate nose guns (assuming you get over the yaw swings). Beware of steep dives as you will pick up speed quickly and drop well below your target. Try to maintain this style as much as possible, it is your strongest. Beware of high speed high G. In some cases the instability kicks in without warning and you will enter the spin.

Energy fighting - Vs. planes that doesn't build their energy very fast (most American rides, typhoons, hurricanes, 190A/F, you can get and keep an upper hand by making them waste their E... if you don't get shop up in the process. You want to keep the fight at high speed and use your E retention (and decent climb on WEP). They will tend to loose more energy than you on maneuvering. The basic approach is to try and get below them on merges - they will try to prevent that and you'll end up doing high speed, front quarter passes. Get some separation and repeat. Soon you'll build a little E advantage so you can rope or switch to BnZ. It does take careful E management and a good eye for estimating your opponent's.

Ropes - Be very gentle when applying rudder for left hammerhead. Over usage of left rudder will lead to a spin. To the right is safer, but slower or even impossible in some conditions. Never use combat trim on the rope, it will trim you up and make you get stuck there. Do not get stalled with the nose up. You will enter the deep stall and possibly spin too. Be vary careful when using flaps, or you will not be able to get the nose down. They cause pitch up - yes, stall and spin... Partial solution is to be sure you are trimmed enough forward before applying the flaps. Always leave some speed to complete the maneuver. You are not a helicopter, as opposed to several other planes in the game.

Eventually, (or initially if you are a hot headed, berserker type) you will have to (want to) knife fight. When that happens, here are some tips that might help: Roll preferably to the left, especially when the speed gets slow. If you want to cut inside your opponent you HAVE TO reduce throttle. If you want to cross control for dumping speed, use right rudder, left is more dangerous. If you are like me and graduated from the "Ray Charles school of aerial gunnery", you have to get in close. Here, the E retention poses a dilemma. If you come in fast, it is easy to reverse you, if you pull back to saddle up, you better not miss or you are in big trouble. The important thing is to decide early and be familiar with the problems of slowing down a mosquito. That is the hardest part to learn, especially for someone so used to planes like the P-47.

Head on shots:
Avoid, it is not worth it. You have the guns for the job, but you are also a big vulnerable target and likely to sustain damage.

Note: This is currently a work in progress. More will be added as it is written!