19 Sqn Hack Mossies

DH Mosquito FB 6 - 19 Sqn Hack

Tamiya, 1/72

By the middle of 1946, the RAF had begun to take delivery of the new De Havilland Hornet twin engined fighter-bomber. Most of the pilots posted to this potent warplane had been trained on and flew single engined fighters, so many of the pilots were converted on twin engined Oxfords and Ansons. In addition, many of the Hornet squadrons were issued with Mosquito T3 dual control trainers. However, these had ceased production by late 1946 and many were now reaching the end of their lives. Consequently the decision was taken to supplement their number amongst the squadrons with a number of refurbished Mosquito FB6 fighter bombers. These differed from the standard wartime FB6 but had the
four .303 machine guns deleted, new four blade props and the installation of a landing light in the starboard wing and were intended for the export market, but twenty were taken from the production line at the Faireys Aviation facility at Ringway and issued to the Hornet squadrons.
RS667 was delivered to 19 Sqn at RAF Wittering early in 1947, along with a Mosquito T3, and was used as a conversion trainer to allow pilots to fly solo, for instrument rating and also for gunnery training. It was also used as a navigation ship for squadron attacks during several exercises.
After several years sterling service, RS667 suffered serious damage after a landing accident in 1950, and the aircraft was used as a ground
instructional airframe for some time, but eventually ended up being used for fire rescue practice at RAF Church Fenton in 1953.

I always build fictional models, either Luftwaffe Œ46 or Allied What Ifs. As soon as I bought the Tamiya 72nd Mosquito FB6 this was the model I
wanted to build, although I built quite a few other what if ones before doing this one. A joy to build from start to finish, this is pretty much straight from the box. The modifications were the four blade props robbed from an Airfix Mosquito NFXIX, the deletion of the machine guns (the nose was filled) and the landing light in the starboard wing. This was modified by cutting a length of clear sprue from the canopy sprue, cutting a hole in the wing leading edge and sanding the sprue to shape. Once complete, it was given a coat of Halfords Grey primer on the uppersurfaces, then masked and sprayed with Aeromaster acrylic RAF PRU Blue. Once that dried, a coat of Halfords clear lacquer later, it was time for the
decals. The serial was made by modifying the kit serials, the squadron badge and code was robbed from the old Frog Hornet sheet and the
checkerboard decal from the scrap decal box. National markings were from an Xtradecal sheet.

Result - a very convincing model of a completely fictional subject.

The other Mosquitos are a Highball equipped 633 Sqn Mosquito FB6, and an RAAF Coastguard Mosquito FB6, featured in the book ³The Alternate RAAF and RAN² by John Baxter.

Page created September 2, 2003