Was the de Havilland Mosquito ever deployed on an aircraft carrier?
score:20
There were trials and plans, but Mosquitos never actually operated from carriers. Eric "Winkle" Brown who was the chief naval test pilot at RAE Farnborough at the time, did deck-landing and takeoff trials aboard HMS Indefatigable on 25th March 1944. This was the first landing of a twin-engine aircraft aboard a Royal Navy carrier, and his memoirs (Wings On My Sleeve) record that it was tricky. In particular, a takeoff down the centre line of the deck wasn't possible without the starboard wing hitting the carrier's island.
Shortly thereafter, he was sent to teach a group of RAF pilots how to take off from (but not land on) a carrier. The purpose of this was to attack KMS Tirpitz with the Highball version of the Barnes Wallis bouncing bomb. The Mosquitos would have had the range to return from this mission to Scotland, but not to fly the distance both ways. The project was dropped after RAF Lancasters sank the Tirpitz in Operation Catechism
The Sea Mosquito TR (Torpedo-Reconnaissance) Mk 33 was ordered on the basis of the trials, but the first production aircraft did not fly until November 1945, and they don't seem to have ever operated from carriers.
The smaller de Havilland Hornet did operate from carriers, and used the same wooden construction techniques.
Upvote:14
The "Sea Mosquito" was tested in March 1944 with carrier deck landing trials on HMS Indefatigable in the Irish Sea. The pilot (almost inevitably) was the legendary Eric 'Winkle' Brown.
He discussed the trials in a 2015 video, where he noted several problems with using the Mosquito in carrier operation, not the least of which was that the carrier’s arrester-gear limited the Mosquito’s landing speed to a maximum 83 mph, in an aircraft with a published stall speed of 110 mph!
The Sea Mosquito development and history is discussed in Michael John Hardt's book De Havilland Mosquito, from page 115. This includes details of the modifications required for the aircraft to be deployed from carriers (reinforced fuselage, A-frame arrester hook, Rolls Royce Merlin 25 engines with larger 4-blade propellers, and (from the 2nd prototype) folding wings).
In the event, they were never deployed operationally as the war ended before the planned mission (Operation Highball) could be carried out.
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