Warbird Information Exchange

Under Weeks' ownership, the Mosquito will never fly again until the fabric is removed so that the wood and glue joints can be inspected and it can be proven to be safe to fly again. Potential issues could lie below the surface of the paint/fabric, no one really knows (there have been a lot of interesting surprises in the current rebuild of Week's all-wood Lockheed Vega). Even if no issues are found with the wood/glue joints, there is still a considerable amount of work to do to bring it back to flight readiness (after all, it has sat static for 26-years). According to Weeks, the Mosquito will continue to have to remain at Oshkosh until more of the hangars (as part of Act III) are built at Fantasy of Flight, so that there will be enough room to house it - according to Weeks, the aircraft will be disassembled and trucked to Fantasy of Flight, when the time is right, and while at FOF, a close inspection of the wood/glue joints will be made and a plan of action to make the aircraft ready to fly again will go from there.

In the meant-time, we have another new Avspecs Mosquito restoration just about to fly (perhaps by the end of the month), in the form of FHC's TV959, then the next one, PZ474, owned by Rod Lewis, slated to fly in 2018, followed by at least two or three more from Avspecs.

In the three youtube videos that he did around his Mosquito, he points out parts of the fuselage that show the beginnings of delamination. That fuselage will require either patches with substantial reinforcement, or a new fuse all together.

It's likely that all of the Mosquito projects on Avspec's 'to do list' will fly before the Weeks example will again.

RS712 has now not flown for over a quarter of a century, and Weeks is now 63 years old.......I'm not sure he'll ever see it fly again. He's just got far too many projects to be done, considering his age......unless he's already done a deal to ship it to Avspecs to get them to add it to their 'to do list'...........which if he wants to see it fly again, is what he should be doing, or already have done. Given it's essentially a complete a/c, like TV959 was, they could turn it around in a similar time frame.

A big reason for Mr. Weeks to not restore his Mosquito is because it was the last flying "original" with original wood, glue, and paint applied by the WW II factory. Once it is restored it will be less original. Like that original unrestored Canadien P-40 that is currently for sale. Absolutely perfect for a collector that doesn't wish to fly it.

AvSpecs will be providing video updates via Facebook - engine runs the next few days, test flights planed for end of the month.
Short FB video

I remember seeing a bomber nosed Mosquito flying at the Breckenridge airshow when I was much younger (probably mid-late 80s). Was it the example currently owned by Weeks?

Anyone know who owned/flew it back in Breckenridge?

I remember they hauled it down to the end of the runway before starting it up, because of engine cooling issues.

Yes, that was Kermit Weeks' airplane. It's the only Mossie that I've ever seen in person. What a joy it was to see it fly! I don't recall who the pilot was. It may have been Kermit himself.

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Lake Dallas, Republic of Texas

Kermit Weeks' Mosquito, although he purchased it in 1981, remained in the UK for several years and didn't set out on its cross-Atlantic flight until late September 1987 (piloted by BAE pilot George Aird), following some years of work to bring it back up to flying condition. When Weeks purchased the aircraft, it had been finished in an overall silver scheme, but following the overhaul, it was repainted (its current paint) in 1986. Once it arrived in Canada, Kermit Weeks took part in the flight down to Florida, and then soon got checked-out in it (following some port-Merlin engine work, after its arrival in Miami in October '87). In '88, Kermit flew the Mosquito at the Breckenridge air show (among other events).

Here are a couple videos from around that time of Kermit flying the Mosquito at the Hamilton, Ontario airshow in '88:
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiLjR_wd6uE
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6Wj0iObxJg

Of course if you had seen a bomber-nosed Mosquito flying in the US back in the early-mid 70's, it would have been the Ed Jurist example (the one that shows up in the 70's-era CAF blue book).

Mid-70s was too early for this guy. It had to be Kermit in 88 at Breckenridge. I remember them opening up the hanger it was stored in and my jaw hitting the tarmac.

Thanks for the info guys!

There used to be a few more Mosquitos in the U.S. Say around 1980-ish. One went to the Air Force Museum and the "last flyable" Mosquito was sold to the UK. I don't remember the details, maybe it was in an "Air CLassics" magazine article. Seems like one of the flyers had an association with the CAF. The owner may have been a member.

Much of what you describe is one Mosquito, RS709 - the one I mentioned that was owned for a time by CAF Col. Ed Jurist. He bought the aircraft around 1969 and had it based with the CAF at Harlingen in the early-mid 70's. It was later sold to Tallichet and then Doug Arnold in the UK. The aircraft went back to the UK in 1979, where it flew briefly following overhaul/restoration, before being sold on again and delivered to the USAF Museum in 1984.

RS709, RS712, and RR299 - Through the 70's and 80's these were the only three Mossies I'm aware of which flew, and I don't know if there was a single time where all three were actively flying at the same time.

Well, all three were flying for the movie "Mosquito Squadron" in 1969 so there is a chance all three were still airworthy into the early seventies. Both RR299 and RS712 were airworthy in '86 or '87 (by which time RS709 was already entombed at the NMUSAF) just prior to the latter coming to the US as they performed together a couple of times. Would be nice to see this picture duplicated some day.

Great photo! I have a feeling that must have been taken just as RS712 was leaving the UK in '87, when RR299 joined up for a bit of the flight. Once FHC's Mosquito TV959 arrives at/begins flying from Paine Field next year, perhaps Bob Jens can be coaxed-enough to have his Mosquito back in the air again for a special Mosquito flight or two - both will be based pretty darn close to one another.

With regard to airworthy Mossies, there were quite a lot it seems, still flying (both military and civilian) up until the mid-late 50's, but by the end of the 60's/early 70's, it really took a turn. For the making of the 1963 film, "633 Squadron", the film company Mirisch Films had ten Mossies in its possession:

- RS709 (flew in movie, now displayed at USAFM)
- RS712 (flew in movie, now displayed at EAA Museum)
- RS715 (used for cockpit scenes, used in static restoration of HJ711 at Elvington)
- RS718 (destroyed in crash scene)
- TA639 (flew in movie, now displayed at the RAF Museum at Cosford)
- TA719 (flew in movie, now displayed at the IWM, Duxford)
- TA642 (destroyed in crash scene)
- TA724 (destroyed in crash scene)
- TJ118 (used for cockpit scenes, only fuselage remains, displayed at the Mosquito Aircraft Museum)
- TV959 (used for ground runs and cockpit scenes, now very near completion of restoration to fly at Avspecs, owned by the Flying Heritage Collection)

For the making of the film, "Mosquito Squadron", (filmed in 1968), again, four airworthy Mossies were used for flying scenes, this time being RS709, RS712, RR299, and TA634 (in addition to TJ118 being used for cockpit scenes and TA719, which by this time was no longer airworthy, used only in ground scenes). Ed Jurist purchased RS709 shortly after the film work was completed, and it was flown from England to Harlingen, TX between late 1971/early 1972. While it was at Harlingen with the CAF, I don't know how much it flew, and after being sold to Tallichet in 1975, it was no longer airworthy by '79 when Doug Arnold purchased the aircraft. He got it flying again by '83, but only just prior to the aircraft going to the USAF Museum a year later. Following the completion of filming, I don't know how much RS712 flew in the early 70's, but it was flown to the Strathallan Collection, in Scotland, in 1975, where it was kept flying through the mid-late 70's, and then was sold at auction to Kermit Weeks in '81, requiring some work to get it flying by 1984, in order to receive even more work before flying again by '86, eventually departing to the US in 1987, where it was operated until the summer of 1990. Hawker Siddeley Aviation/BAE I believe operated RR299, regularly, from the early-mid 60's all the way up until the fatal crash in 1996. Following the end of filming, TA634 was no longer flown, and was obtained by the Mosquito Aircraft Museum in 1970, where it has remained on static display (though it was looked upon, some years back, following the crash of RR299, as a possible candidate to fly again).

John Terell, thanks for refreshing my memory. Your information sounds 100% correct for the 1980's. The only MOsquito that ever flewn to the Breckenridge Airshow was Kermit's. I remember in the 1980's when there was 1 "airwothy" but not reall, Mosquito, one or two SPitfires and no Hurricanes airworthy in North America. Bill Greenwood's Spitfire was the only airworthy example for a few years.

I was curious about that as well, since usually Avspecs tends to have the aircraft painted even prior to engine runs, and they're talking of doing the engine runs within only a few days and it is still in its pre-paint/base silver dope finish. I think "Moonbeam McSwine" would be a fantastic paint scheme to see applied to it, with the all-black night intruder bottom-surfaces, and a very interesting story to tell with the original pilot (the only American Mosquito ace). The FHC Mosquito is a trainer variant, and is being completed authentically as such, so it doesn't have any armament installed (like the BAE Mosquito RR299).