AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 44 / 103

Plate 44 of 103 · Second World War · Long-range escort fighter

North American P-51 Mustang

P-51D-30-NA, painted as 44-74409, a North American P-51D-30-NA Mustang built at Inglewood, California, in 1945 with a Packard Merlin V-1650-7, flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force as 9235, then by private owners in the United States and Venezuela, flown as N51RT by Bob Tullius in the markings of Capt Donald R. Emerson’s 44-13317 ‘VF-B’ of the 336th Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Group, and given to the RAF Museum in 2003, painted as it is shown at RAF Museum London: polished natural metal, a red spinner and nose ring, an olive-drab anti-glare panel and canopy frame, the star and bar on both fuselage sides, above the port wing and below the starboard wing, black ‘VF’ and ‘B’ codes, ‘413317’ under a black band on the fin, black bands on the upper wings and tailplanes, black and white invasion stripes under the wings and rear fuselage, seven victory crosses under the cockpit, the dorsal fin fillet, and a black four-blade propeller with yellow tips; the Donald Duck nose art on the port cowling is left off, and the drop tanks displayed beside it are not fitted.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as 44-74409, a North American P-51D-30-NA Mustang built at Inglewood, California, in 1945 with a Packard Merlin V-1650-7, flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force as 9235, then by private owners in the United States and Venezuela, flown as N51RT by Bob Tullius in the markings of Capt Donald R. Emerson’s 44-13317 ‘VF-B’ of the 336th Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Group, and given to the RAF Museum in 2003, painted as it is shown at RAF Museum London: polished natural metal, a red spinner and nose ring, an olive-drab anti-glare panel and canopy frame, the star and bar on both fuselage sides, above the port wing and below the starboard wing, black ‘VF’ and ‘B’ codes, ‘413317’ under a black band on the fin, black bands on the upper wings and tailplanes, black and white invasion stripes under the wings and rear fuselage, seven victory crosses under the cockpit, the dorsal fin fillet, and a black four-blade propeller with yellow tips; the Donald Duck nose art on the port cowling is left off, and the drop tanks displayed beside it are not fitted. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.5 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (D & CA-18); engine, crew and dimensions are for the P-51D-30-NA modelled here.

History

The Mustang

The Mustang was designed for Britain. In April 1940 the British Purchasing Commission asked North American Aviation of Inglewood, California, to build Curtiss P-40s under licence; the company’s president, James “Dutch” Kindelberger, offered a better fighter of its own instead. Edgar Schmued’s team drew a clean low-winged monoplane with a laminar-flow wing and a radiator set far back under the fuselage, where a carefully shaped duct recovered much of its drag as thrust. The prototype, NA-73X, was built in a little over a hundred days and first flew from Mines Field, Los Angeles, on 26 October 1940. The RAF named it Mustang, and the US Army Air Forces later kept the name.

The first Mustangs had the Allison V-1710 engine, which lost power quickly with height. The RAF used them from 1942 for low-level tactical reconnaissance and ground attack with Army Co-operation Command, where they were fast and handled well. That year Rolls-Royce fitted a Merlin 61, with its two-stage supercharger, to Mustangs at Hucknall, and the result was transformed above 20,000 ft. In America the Packard-built Merlin went into the P-51B and C, which reached England late in 1943.

The P-51D of 1944 had a cut-down rear fuselage with a bubble canopy, six .50 in machine guns and the Packard V-1650-7. With drop tanks it could escort the Eighth Air Force’s bombers to Berlin and back, and from the spring of 1944 the Mustang groups wore down the Luftwaffe’s day fighters over Germany itself. About 15,000 Mustangs were built, about 8,000 of them D models. The type fought again in Korea, served many smaller air forces into the 1970s and 1980s, the Dominican Republic’s last of all, and remains the most numerous Second World War fighter still flying.

This airframe

P-51D-30-NA 44-74409, painted as 44-13317 “VF-B”

44-74409The airframe modelled

44-74409 was built at Inglewood in 1945, too late for the war, and served with a USAAF training unit. In 1950 it went to the Royal Canadian Air Force as 9235 and flew with Nos. 417, 403 and 402 Squadrons until it was put into storage in 1954. Struck off in 1958, it passed through a string of American owners, flew aerobatic air shows, was landed with its wheels up at Galveston in 1970 and spent most of the 1980s in Venezuela. In 1991 the racing driver Bob Tullius bought it, registered it N51RT and painted it as 44-13317 “VF-B” of the 336th Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Group, at Debden, the aircraft of Capt Donald R. Emerson, who was killed by ground fire over Belgium on Christmas Day 1944. Tullius flew it at more than 140 air shows, then gave it to the RAF Museum; it made its last flight on 2 September 2003 and reached Hendon that November. The model shows it as displayed: polished natural metal, a red spinner and nose ring, an olive-drab anti-glare panel, the star and bar with the codes VF and B, “413317” on the fin, black bands on the upper wings and tailplanes, invasion stripes underneath, seven victory crosses under the cockpit, and a black propeller with yellow tips. Emerson’s Donald Duck nose art is left off.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum London

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Mustang in 3 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 103 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.