In July 1948 the Royal Swedish Air Board signed a contract with de Havilland Aircraft Co. for the delivery of sixty Mosquito night fighters. The aircraft were to be obtained from the British Ministry of Supply’s Surplus Stocks. More than half of the sixty aircraft had never been in service. The deliveries were to start in July 1948 and finished a year later. 

The Swedish Air Force had no night fighter capacity before this purchase. All Mosquitoes were to be based at Wing F 1 in Västerås, a former bomber wing.

The story behind the Mosquito is well-known. Due to the shortage of strategic metals during WWII, de Havilland designed a twin-engine bomber constructed of plywood and balsa wood. The choice of material gave a light aircraft. It was engined by the now available powerful Rolls Royce Merlin engines, which made the aircraft very fast.

Designed originally as a bomber, this capable aircraft was used for many different duties. It was also built in versions as fighter, reconnaissance aircraft, night fighters (with radar), carrier-borne aircraft, torpedo aircraft, transports, ground attack and much more. The ”pathfinders” got a special reputation during WWII. They were Mosquito crews which led the bomber armadas to their targets. They were specialist in precision navigation and dropped flares from low altitude over the targets in Germany, thus giving the four-four-engine strategic bombers the possibility of precision bombing from a higher altitude.

The night fighter version Mk XIX was fitted with Rolls-Royce Merlin 25 engines, each of 1633 hp. It had a maximum speed of 600 km/h. The radar was of American origin; type Signal Radio Corps 720 manufactured by Western Electric. It worked at the 3 GHz-band. In Sweden, it was designated PS20/A. A moving parabola antenna was installed in the nose of the aircraft, protected by a plexi-glass radome.

The armaments consisted of four 20 mm automatic guns m/46A (Hispano). For training purposes, this installation could be replaced by four 12,7 mm guns.

Not a single Swedish Mosquito  was spared for the future. I quote the aviation historian Mikael Forslund, who writes in his book J 30 Mosquito: ”Three aircraft should have been spared. One could have been flown, another could have been kept in a museum and the third sold to provide yet another museum. So valuable the Mosquitoes have become today”. See the bibliography for more information about the book (which is provided with picture texts in English). 

Photo at top: J 30, marked Red D (David) at Wing F 6 at Karlsborg.

Length: 12,68 m. Span: 16,52, m.  Maximum take-off weight: , 9 550 kg. Max. speed:600 km/h.

For the Model Builder

Airfix has produced a plastic model kit of J 30 Mosquito with Swedish decals in scale 1/72. The model builder can choose between code Blue B and Yellow H.  Catalouge number 03062.

© Lars Henriksson