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F-51 Mustang

Ickie

Ickie

SOH Administrator
I thought I knew everything (hehehe) until the other night watching TV, lol
It was in 1947 and they were talking about a plane which crashed chasing a UFO, I thought they made a mistake when they refereed to it as a F-51 Mustang, humm, I had to go to the internet to find this and sure enough there was a few built.
How come we do not have any for our flight sims?
 
Hi Ickie. Bomber12th will chime in here with a better answer, but I believe the "F" came into play when the Air Force dropped the "P" for pursuit in favor of "F" for fighter. After the war the Mustangs were slightly modified by having the retractible tail wheel removed in favor of a stationary unit, among other subtle changes. Hope this helps.
 
Yep, at some point in teh late 1940'a the pursuit designation was dropped in favor of the fighter designation. From that point on all fighter aircraft in the USAF inventory changed from P to F, so all remaining P-51's became F-51's, P-80's became F-80's and even the P-47's in ANG service changed to F-47's. It was also around this time that the A-26 Invader became the B-26 Invader, before returning to the A-26 in the 1960s.
 
Ickie said:
How come we do not have any for our flight sims?
Click to expand...

Soon, very soon (though not limited to just a stock/straight F-51D). ; )

In 1947, with the formation of the USAF, the "Pursuit" designation was dropped, and all of the fighter aircraft in service at the time, like the Mustang and Thunderbolt, were redesignated with "F" for "Fighter" (where as during WWII the "F" designation stood for "Foto", and was used to identify camera-equipped aircraft - with the formation of the Air Force, this was changed to "R" for "Reconnaissance"). You'll also notice that the buzz codes changed at this same time, from PF to FF, and the stars and bars gained the red lines.

Quite a number of changes were made to Mustangs in service during and after this time, through active duty and ANG use (as well as foreign use) - this included different radio installations, different payloads, different stencils, new cockpit placards, a different propeller type, etc., that weren't seen on these aircraft during WWII. Other improvements were made to these aircraft after WWII, which saw different configurations of cooling gills added (on the sides of the radiators), an emergency coolant door release which hadn't come around until very late Mustang production, replacement and re-positioning of the guns/gun sight switch (and other items like that), and as Quicksand states, in 1953 a technical order was issued stating that the tail wheel units were to be locked in the down position (which of course, by that time, only would have affected Mustangs operating in the U.S.). The types and amount of changes differed from one example to the other, as the work was usually only accomplished when the aircraft was in for maintenance reasons. Also, although many Mustangs continued in service with their original interior green paint in the cockpits, others, when overhauled from 1950-onwards, were sometimes given all-over black paint applications in the cockpit as well (though not nearly as many F-51 cockpits were black, as some might be led to believe).

More details on this will be posted soon.
 
Thanks for your reply Dakota, and yours as well, John. I knew you would have the scoop on it, and I am thrilled to learn that we might be graced by some post WW2 era Mustangs soon... :jump::applause::icon29::guinness:
 
John, while I'm at it, I'd just like to thank you for your hard work and dedication in bringing the Mustang into FSX. I have them all, yours and others, and I still think yours are the best. I have watched you mature as a designer, and I am awed by the realism and attention to detail you lovingly inject into your creations. I just got done with the longest flight I've ever attempted in one of your Mustangs, and I sit here as satisfied as if I had just unstrapped from a real Pony at my homedrome. I especially want to thank you for bringing George Preddy's Cripes A Mighty to life in our sim. As everyone here already knows, George Preddy holds a special place in my heart along with his younger brother Bill, who both gave their lives while flying the P-51 over Europe. If you could work it out, I would love to see Bill's ride "Rusty" get a little attention before you move on to the post war and Korean era Mustangs. If it is not possible, I understand. Thanks for being such a wonderful member of our community, and you know I will buy everything you create for this sim... I salute you, my friend.. :medals::icon29::salute::USA-flag:
 
If it's the one I'm thinking of it was probably the Capt. Thomas Mantell case. Mantell was a pilot with the Kentucky ANG and was sent out to investigate a sighting of a large, bright object on the afternoon of January 7, 1948. It's commonly thought that Mantell died as a result of the crash of his Mustang following a loss of consciousness due to lack of oxygen at altitude as he tried to investigate the sighting. No definitive explanation has been given by the Air Force or by witnesses on the ground of what was seen that day.

N.
 
Somewhere I've read the aircraft Mantell was flying that day was known to have a bug in its oxygen system. The most likely explanation for the actual crash was anoxia on the part of Mantell. I couldn't begin to speculate about what he is alleged to have seen prior to the accident, however, we may again have to consider the effects of anoxia. This incident was included in a black & white film made many years ago, in the '50s, about UFOs. Somewhere in my archives, in storage, I've got the tape I made of it.
 
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