Interesting facts about the P51

[fdiron]

Anyone have any interesting facts about the P51?  If so, go ahead and share some.  I'll start.

-The P51b had its guns mounted at a slight angle which made them prone to jams while firing under Gs.

-Early versions of the reconnaisance version of the P51 had problems with the canopy jamming.  This would cause pilots to get trapped in the cockpit.  Sometimes claw marks would be found on pieces of the canopy at p51 crash sites.

-It was not impossible to rip the wings off the P51 during maneuvers.  In fact, it happened several times.

[Kratzer]

P51 co-designer Edgar Schmued had previously worked for Messerschmitt - perhaps explaining some of the visual similarity between the early '51s and 109s?

[Thrawn]

Apparently the motto for the P51 was, "Though I fly through the valley of death, I well fear no enemy, for I'm at 30,000 feet and climbing."

-Some guy on the wwiionline boards
 

[flakbait]

Kratzer, that's an urban legend.

 

So Sayeth Joe Baugher:

A sort of urban legend has grown up about Edgar Schmued, which claims that he had once worked for Willy Messerschmitt and that the Mustang was heavily influenced by the Bf 109.

http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p51_1.html


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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"For yay did the sky darken, and split open and spew forth fire, and
through the smoke rode the Four Wurgers of the Apocalypse.
And on their canopies was tattooed the number of the Beast, and the
number was 190." Jedi, Verse Five, Capter Two, The Book of Dweeb
 

[Urchin]

Thought that Shumzer guy did some minor electrical work for the P51, and that was the extent of his "influence" on the design.

As far as the P51B goes, its guns were actually mounted at a 60 degree angle- closer to sideways than upright.

[Kweassa]

Edgar Schmued was the chief engineer of North American Aviation at that time. He immigrated to America in 1930, so that's quite a long time before the Bf-109 was conceived. Also, I don't think chief engineer's would just give a touch on few electric assembly and get all the credit for the plane... but of course, that is just my speculation..

 I actually have no idea how the Schmued/Horkey engineering team worked on the NA-73X(the direct ancestor of the latter P-51s), but I don't think it is fair to underestimate how much Schmued contributed to it. (Well.. maybe he really didn't.. who knows..?)


 

 Here's the father of all Mustangs, NA-73.. come to think of it... it does resemble the Bf 109s in some aspects  

[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: Kweassa ]

[Staga]

Originally posted by Thrawn:
Apparently the motto for the P51 was, "Though I fly through the valley of death, I well fear no enemy, for I'm at 30,000 feet and climbing."

-Some guy on the wwiionline boards
   

ROFLMAO!

[Kratzer]

Whoah now...

I wasn't making any claim of him designing anything to do with the 109, simply noting that he worked on the 51, had worked for messerschmitt, and noting the similarity between the A/B Ponies and the 109.

[fdiron]

Heres another one

Some late model P51s actually had a radar unit mounted in the tail to detect enemy aircraft closing in from behind.  Unfortunately it was hard to properly set the sensitivity on this unit.

[xxbow]

Sorta like now, when you get a check 6 as your falling from the sky?  

[flakbait]

No worries Kratzer, just stating facts as I know 'em is all.


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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"With all due respect Chaplian, I don't think my maker wants to hear from me right now. I'm gonna go out there and remove one of His creations from this universe.
And when I get back I'm gonna drink a bottle of Scotch like it was Chiggy von
Richthofen's blood and celebrate his death."
Col. McQueen, Space: Above and Beyond

[ra]

Here's another:   the laminar airfoil didn't do much to increase airspeed as was intended.  It was the radiator scoop design that was the secret the to P-51s high speed.

ra

edit:  sorry, had to see wtf 'burlywood' is

[Widewing]

Originally posted by ra


Here's another:   the laminar airfoil didn't do much to increase airspeed as was intended.  It was the radiator scoop design that was the secret the to P-51s high speed.

In reference to the thrust generated by the Mustang's radiator design, North American Aviation Chief Engineer Lee Atwood explained, "Both the British and German engineers at the time thought you could test a scale model in a wind tunnel. But the wind tunnel models didn't generate the engine-heat factor, which we successfully controlled within the air scoop to create positive thrust. They were all looking at Mustang's laminar flow wing, which was noted for reducing air friction over the surface of aircraft wings."

Pointing to several mathematical equations, Atwood continued, "The laminar flow wing is great for jet airplanes or in a high-speed dive but had little effect on the P-51's overall performance envelope. You have to attribute the speed increase to the radiator energy recovery (positive thrust), not the characteristic of the wing itself. The wing did help in a dive -- not in level flight. I never mentioned this to anyone during the war."

From: Online Atwood biography.

My regards,

Widewing

[gripen]

Well, as Atwood notes, the idea of using heat for propulsion  in the radiator was invented  by F.W. Meredith (RAE employee) at 1934. And the radiator of  the Spitfire also utilized this idea but not as well as the Merlin P-51 with it's boundary layer scoop. At 1942 there were plans to  introduce ventral radiator to the Spitfire too but it would have required complete redesign of the fuselage and therefore the idea was rejected. The Brits and German were certainly aware about the effect.

gripen

[bozon]

in 1956 p-51s were still in use by the IAF.
they were sent in operation "kadesh" (a british, french, israely operation to capture the Sinai noodleula and force Egypt to open the Suetz canal) to cut the telephone wires before the ground assult.
they were fitted with a long cable & sharp hooks that was dragged by the planes for this job. these were torn off after a few successfull passes and the rest of the wires were cut by the plane's wings and propeller - the pilots simply flew into the wires!
must be some durable plane, but every one still thought they were crazy.

Bozon