North American P-51 Mustang

Possum3 · Guru

Lots of information to keep you busy. From Mate in USA

Ron-D · Guru

Thanks possum early aviation especially the First World War is a passion with me...

RustyD · Guru

Early this year drove nearly 1000kms with two friends. They talked planes most of the way. I will be sending them these links.

Possum3 · Guru

It's a pity that the Yanks are only gazing at their own navels - They don't mention Boomerangs, Wirraways, Woomeras, Wacket, Peka, Jindavick, Beaufighters (Whispering Death), Mosquito, Interceptor CA13, CAC Sabres, etc

RustyD · Guru

One of my 1000kms passengers was involved in this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansett_Airlines_Flight_232 as an apprentice aircraft mechanic.

-- Edited by RustyD on Friday 1st of December 2017 03:54:14 PM

PeterD · Guru

It is just a typical Americanocentric piece typical of something they produce.

Cupie · Guru

Thanks for that ... a lot of work to produce that large volume of interesting reading, despite it's understandable USA bias. A US body of work for US consumption no doubt, but good stuff none the less.

They were of course one of the MAJOR players, once they joined the fray and as such are entitled to skite a bit .. in the usual American way.

Thanks for posting it.

Ron-D · Guru

european theater of war only had yanks in it no spitfires no Battle of Britain the author missed the main bit...

iana · Guru

The European theatre was on the offensive, Spitfires were pretty useless for this task. Typhoons, Tempests and Mosquitos were used though. They needed aircraft that had range and could carry something, like rockets or bombs.

Lancelot Link · Senior Member

We all know the Yanks won the wars, first and second, by all the movies they produced. I just hope Donald Trump averts the next World War!

RustyD · Guru

The Yanks sent the Poms a bill for WW2. They only paid it off in 2006.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6215847.stm

Ron-D · Guru

iana wrote:
The European theatre was on the offensive, Spitfires were pretty useless for this task. Typhoons, Tempests and Mosquitos were used though. They needed aircraft that had range and could carry something, like rockets or bombs.

I believe that England is in Europe and the spitfire came in handy in the Battle of Britain, the greatest plane of them all that won the war finally was the mustang ,it was far superior to anything else in the air and had the fuel range to support the bombers over Germany...

Cupie · Guru

Looks like the Yanks had a very large role in developing the Mustang too.

I recall seeing several of them at RAAF base Amberley post war. Few if any Spitfires & later lots of Wirraways (Trainers?)

North American P-51 Mustang

Generally considered the best fighter of WWII

By Stephen Sherman, Apr. 2002. Updated Sept. 26, 2012.

North American Aviation originally designed the Mustang in response to a British specification. They agreed to produce the first prototype only 4 months after signing the contract in April 1940.

By the end of 1941 North American had delivered the first Mustang to England for test flights. These first Mustangs were powered by the Allison V-1710 engine, a good engine, but one which didn't operate well at high altitudes.

A Better Engine

In April, 1942, a British test pilot, Ronald Harker, flew the Mustang and was very impressed by it. He suggested that the new plane would be a natural fit with the Rolls Royce Merlin 60-series engine, well-suited to high altitudes. At the prodding of Major Thomas Hitch****, the Americans began working along the same lines (using the Packard license-built version of the Merlin), and the first Merlin-equipped Mustang, the P-51B, flew in November, 1942. The results were impressive, to say the least. At 30,000 feet, the improved Mustang reached 440 MPH, almost 100 MPH faster than the Allison-equipped Mustang at that altitude.

iana · Guru

The P51 generally considered as one of the best fighter aircraft of ww2, there were a lot of good aircraft at that time. The Mustang was no good for navel operations, as ditching that aircraft was a death sentence for the pilot, on account of the oil cooler intake under the fuse.
Unless it was a bad aircraft, they all had attributes, when used to their advantage gave an upper hand. The Americans were able to produce practical aircraft to maintain, flying was not the only thing that made an aircraft good, it had to be able to take damage, and be easily maintained.
My dealings with British aircraft of that era, was they were complicated and hard to maintain.

Ron-D · Guru

Just like there cars biggrin

iana · Guru

Did you know they tried a Spitfire with different wings, renamed the Spitful, the performance increase was minimal, so it wasn't produced in numbers.