North American Aviation P-51 Mustang Aircraft Registration No 47297. GAV 4025-383
The P51 is the most famous of the American "big three" from WWII: those being the P47, P38, and P51. It seems ironic that this fighter is so closely associated with American air power in the second world war; as it's design specifications and requirements were driven entirely by the RAF in the form of an order from the British Purchasing Commission. If it hadn't been for the outstanding performance of this fighter it might have existed simply as an American export to England; but after test figures came through the US was compelled to start using the P51 along side the P38 and P47 designs they had already committed to. The P51 owes its rightful place as one of the best fighters in WWII to some innovative design and a small piece of luck. The design was in the low drag airframe and laminar flow wings, which allowed for some truly staggering at the time top end speed, and the luck was a British decision early on it's history to attempt to mount a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine in place of the original Allison supplied in Mustang Is. The resultant Mustang I/Merlin combination provided such astounding performance it basically replaced any plans to use Allison variants; instead the began supplying Packard-built Merlins in P51 frames. A saying came about in WWII that describes the Mustang well: "The Mustang won't do what a Spitfire does, but it does it over Berlin". P51s had a staggering amount of fuel capacity hidden in their sleek lines, and with the addition of disposable external fuel tanks could range upwards of 2,000 miles - full operational distance for most bombers. They weren't the best turning planes in the air, but by the time they were widely in use pilots understood that turning was a very limited performance characteristic in combat - what was required of newer fighters was speed. And the P51 had it in droves; it was faster than almost everything in the air, climbed reasonably well, and suffered much less high speed maneuverability loss than most of its
Size: 5318px × 3617px
Location: RAF Fairford, England. United Kingdom.
Photo credit: © David Gowans / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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