Love em. And when you've blown their houses down, you could fill it with the furniture and take it to a boot sale.
Some info I found out about the guns on a Mosquito; One of the things that the English found out about mounting massive guns in aircraft is that the recoil not only royally fucked up the airframe, but caused the aircraft to pause in midair. Some British pilots claimed that their Mosquito literally stopped, and had to be put into a steep dive in order maintain airspeed after discharging the 57mm autocannon. Just below the four .303cal you can see the autocannon.
They called it the Tsetse. The feed was based on a cigarette vending machine. They tested them here at Exeter airport with a mock up of a u boat on the back lot. One pilot encountered a JU 88 over the Bristol Channel on his way back to Banff. One shot from the Mollins gun blew one of its engines out of its mount. It wasn't as effective as the rocket carrying variant though. They reckoned a salvo from that had the same kinetic energy as an 8" cruiser broadside.
A couple of pictures from my living room walls Broken Silence. Signed by Ivor Broom, John Cunningham and Leonard Cheshire. Cloud Companions. Yes the Mosquito is another one of my anoraks, I'm afraid.
Apparently, now they've built the one, there's another build on their books. At last they'll be flying again.
My WW2 anorak obsession is the spitfire... I have the famous spitfire print signed by the man himself.... Douglas Bader, an original flying jacket, and also the operating manuel. If we meet on a ride out, we can bore everyone else rigid talking about it... Lol
I've got Duel of Eagles, signed by Bader and Galland, and Memorial Flight signed by Townshend, Johnson and Norman Jackson, who was in this weeks heroes of the skies documentary. All of them by Robert Taylor. I stopped collecting them when I ran out of wall. I'm lucky Jeanette doesn't mind them. She probably worked out what they're worth. I've got a pilots manual for a mosquito night fighter and a piece from an excavated crashed one, my brother got me for my birthday last year. It's some kind of pressure servo, probably oil or hydraulic fluid. I've tried to find out but neither the Mosquito heritage museum nor the fleet air arm museum bothered to return my emails. Jeanette promised me an Irwin pattern jacket if I bought her a sports car. Here I am two years into MX5 ownership and still no flying jacket.
