The remarcable North American P-51 MustangThis picture is re-sized. Click it to load the real sized version mustang.jpg, 1225x781x24b JPEG, 116.7 KB |
At the beginning of 1940, the British Comission for US Aquisitions signed a contract for the purchase of 320 fighters called Na 73 (prototype project designated Mustang) only after seeing a preliminary sketch presented by North American. Due to the lack of time characteristic to the year 1940, during the first phases of World War II, things turned out pretty speedy from now on. The engineers of the North American Design Bureau were told that the contract has been signed in the 24th of April 1940, so their project was already done on the 29th of may the same year (after a record time of only 36 days !), and after another 123 days, on the 30th of August 1940, the prototype is presented to the British Comission and to the United States military officials. The prototype still didn't had an engine due to the delay of some settings on the Allison V-1710-F3R engine, which was suposed to deliver 1550 HP. In the 26th of october 1940, the prototype executes the first testing flight with a duration of 20 minutes. The excellent results led to the increase of the British Comission's request from 320 fighters to 620 fighters for the UK.
The fighter entered RAF under the name of Mustang Mk. I, the british always preferring names instead of nombers for their aircraft (see British Fighters Page if you're still not convinced about that).
In the US Air Force, the fighter entered designated as NA P-51A Mustang.
At first, the fighter was used especially for reconnoisance missions and photographing of the enemy, as well as ground attack, due to the poor performances of the Allison engine at high altitudes where the air-air combat was going on, the P-51A being outmaneouvred and outpowered at such altitudes by fighters like Me109 and Fw190 (around 9,000m).
The RAF Fighter Command and its pilots considered that the excellent design of the P-51 can be used at its full potential if they switch the engine with their own Rolls Royce Merlin engine, which delivered roughly the same power as the Allison engine but was able to keep that same power at 500m as well as at 11,000m, while the Allison engine lost half of its thrust at 9,000m compared to 500m.
Therefore, a prototype was made, fitted with a Rolls Royce Merlin 65 engine with a two-stage compressor and carburator fuel injection. The prototype, designated AL 975 G had a ROTOL 4-blade propeller. Due to the excellent results of the testings with this new engine, the mass production of fighters fitted with it was immediatly initiated. The new fighter used a Rolls Royce Merlin 61 engine, while for the US Air Force the engine was made under licence by Packard and renamed Packard V-1650-3. The glicol radiator was redesigned and the compressor's intake was moved lower down the nose of the aircraft. The propeller has also been replaced with a new Hamilton Standard model.
This new version was made under the name of NA P-51B at Inglewood, near Los Angeles, and as P-51C NT in Dallas.
The next versions with upgraded capabilities and characteristics were P-51D, P-51N/K and F-82G.
In all, there were 15,586 P-51 Mustangs ever made, and the P-51 has served in a lot of Air Forces, like the US Air Force, RAF, Sweden, Soviet Union, South Vietnam, Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, New Zeeland, Poland and Sotuh Africa, to name just a few.
P-51B Mustang was a single engined low-winged monoplane fighter, with a retractable metalic landing gear.
The fuselage was made out of 3 sections: forward, central and rear
The forward fuselage kept the engine very tight within it for airodynamic finesse.
The central fuselage had 4 attaching points on each side, and it continued on the rear of the cockpit with a semimonococked structure.
The rear fuselage was a cantilever system made in one piece.
The wing was made out of two pieces nitted together in the center of the fuselage, its extrados making the floor of the cockpit. Between the longerons it was fitted with fuel tanks. It had a laminary profile, with its maximum coard way beyond the attack bord, thing which reduced the drag considerably.
The glicol radiator, fitted under the fuselage, had a sizeble outtake, insuring a considerable supplimentary thrust.
All the airodynamic control surfaces were dynamically equilibrated.
1944. The bomber offense operations over Europe included also Romania. Massive B17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator formations of the US Air Force, which took off from Foggia, Italy, attacked and bombed everything.
Rafineries, oil lands, railways and railways links, ports, everything was under a massive carpet-bombing campaign.
Flying in massive formations sometimes of 300 bombers at a time, these bombers were flying usually at around 7,000m, each one of them being equipped with 11 to 13 12.7mm machineguns for defense.
The Romanian Air Force Fighter Command composed mainly of IAR 80181 and Me109G fighters gets up into the air to give the americans a warm welcome.
They did it before during 1943, when on august the 1st, the american bombers attacked the city of Poiesti from an altitude of 100m. The romanian fighter pilots were impressed by the firepower of those bombers' machineguns, but they still attacked them and they had a lot of victories. A lot.
However, we are in 1944 now and the situation changed. The romanian hunters got a huge surprize: in the beginning, the american bombers were escorted by P-38 Lightnings, but then they kept on coming escorted by the new long-range highly-manoeuvrable P-51 Mustangs. The dogfightings become increasingly difficult and it becomes almoust impossible now to get close to the bombers.
As time passed-by, slowly but safely, the bombers started being escorted exclusively by the Mustangs, which were technically superior to the romanian IAR-81 and Me109G at the altitudes of the fightings (between 9,000 and 10,000m). But that's not the big problem, as the romanian fighter pilots were better trained and had more experience than the new P-51 american pilots. The big problem was that there were around 4 or 5 Mustangs for every romanian fighter.
In the past, the romanian pilots competed against equally experienced and trained american pilots, the romanians on IAR-81 and Me109G, and the americans on P-38s. The pilots being equally trained, the discussion switches to the fighters, where the IAR-81 was totally superior to the P-38. Therefore, even if they were outnombered generally on a scale of 3:1, the romanians could always get to the bombers and shut them down.
However, the P-51 was by far superior to the P-38, Me109G and even to the IAR-81, adding the new scale of 5:1 for the american fighters, and you get a very low chance of success.
However, the romanians still fight. And the american bombers fall down from the sky as flees. One by one, the B-24s and B-17 FFs were falling down in flames with the characteristic noise of a propeller-engine spinning in an uncontrolled dive towards the Earth. Bombers mostly, not too many fighters. The Romanians begin to fall as well.
Elite Aces Ion Mitu, the oldest romanian fighter pilot, Mucenica Teodor, Greceanu, Popescu, Ciocanel, Turcanu, Balan. Dead. Dead, mutilated life-less bodies in a flaming diving fighter. In the 18th of August 1944, the ace of the Romanian Air Force in World War II, cpt. Alexandru Serbanescu, the commander of the 9th Fighter Group is shut down by a Mustang.
26th of august 1944. Early in the morning. From the Popesti-Leordeni airfield, a Me109G-6 fighter takes-off with a very strange marking on its fuselage. On each side of it, in the read of the cockpit, it has the american flag, and on its wings, it has the USAAF seal. Its destination: San Giovanni, Italy. Its pilot: aviator cpt. Constantin "Bāzu" Cantacuzino. His mission: a diplomatical one. In the back of the cockpit, all the radio equipment has been extracted, and in its place, a small perimeter was all covered with blankets. In the blankets lies american aviator lt-col James A. Gunn from USAAF, ex-POW in Romania.
They get to San Giovanni without any incidents. The romanian cpt, but especially the G 109er, make sensation. The american pilots want to fly with the Messerschmidt. One of them gets the approval. But the G is a difficult, "nervous" bird. It requires a special finesse in holding its wheels. The american doesn't has it. His take-off is mistaken and wrongly directed. The G leaves the airstrip and damages its landing gear. It will stay in Italy...
The americans can't repair it right away, so they give the romanian fighter pilot a Mustang in return. Cpt. Cantacuzino returns in Romania flying his own P-51B Mustang, belonging to US Air Forces 15th Air Army, 325th Group, 319th Squadron. He is escorted by 4 other Mustangs. They all land at Popesti-Leordeni on the 29th of August 1944, 11:30hrs. The 4 american Mustangs, after insuring everything is OK, salutes the romanian airmen on the ground by bending their wings, and they disappear towards the West.
What impression did the Mustang made to the romanian fighter pilots ?
Some of them liked it. Some of them didn't. However, the memories when the Mustand still represented the enemy that shot down all of their friends were way too fresh. After some time, an american pilot returned the Mustang in Italy. I don't have any information if the romanian Me109G was also returned, but I assume so.
In 1943, B17, B17 Flying Fortress and B24 Liberator wings are starting a long and exhausting bombing campaign over Berling. At the time, the available fighters, Spitfire, Hurricane, P38 Lighting and P47 Thunderbolt didn't had enough range to escort the bombers over Berlin, so german Fokker Wolff Fw190,
Messerschmidt Me109E and Me109F were shutting down the bombers like flees. It was obvious for everybody that a new escort fighter was needed, one that could fly highier and faster than the germans, but also carrying a lot of rounds and having enough range to escort the bombers until, over and from Berlin.
In the same year, North American Aviation Industries Inc starts the research for a new fighter, and in only 6 months from the drawing board to the first flight, the P51A Mustang was ready for the battle.
Having an enourmous General Motors proppeler single engine gaved it troumeandes power at sea-level for the take-off, but at high altitudes, like 9 000m, at which the fights were at, that huge power was lost.
With its watercooled engine, it could reach speeds of up to 650 km/h, being the fastest non-jet aircraft of World War II. It also had enough range to escort the bombers on their entire mission, and superior manoeuvrability to their german counterparts. And so, until 1945, when small isolated squads of Me262 jet fighters flying at 800 km/h started to hunt them, the P51 Mustangs ruled the skies above Europe, for the first time in the entire war.
Sorin P-51 Mustang page is copyright 1998-2003 by Sorin A Crasmarelu from Sorin Air Group