This reminds me of an article I read… And this had to be back in the 1970s… about a group of ‘sport pilot’ mustang owners who traveled to the Honduras to see original P51s still in military service.
The article pointed out the difference in flight characteristics between a civilianized mustang and one that still has all of the weight that is involved with armor and armament. Perhaps the biggest impression that was made on me is how the military pilots would not consider doing a wheeled in (on just the main wheels) landing. The military aircraft would basically, flare and stall, at landing and touch down on all three wheels simultaneously.
I also remember a picture of the tips of the .50cal guns being covered with the caps from rum bottles. The absence of the bottle caps would prove upon landing that the guns had been fired during the flight… Strange, the things that stick in your head after all these years. (Or it could be just be old-age re-writing what I read nearly 40 years ago.)
What I’m saying is, what you are seeing in the video may not accurately represent what that aircraft was capable of doing when it was actually in service and fully loaded.
