[JohnZ]

I was passing through the Charlotte, NC airport last Friday. There, hanging from the ceiling was a large model of the famous warbird, P-51 Mustang. Gorgeous replica. The name on it was "Cripes Almighty".....verrry cool name. It perfectly captures the awe of that 1650 Horsepower beast "canon of the sky" in a steep strafing run raining .50 cal on some unlucky souls. And this also comes to mind...."CRIPES ALMIGHTY"....post something people. What gives ???. Got an opinion? Sure you do....POST! Got a gripe? Sure you do....POST. Got something wonderful to share with your neighbors? Sure you do....POST. Got a teensy weensy juiciy secret you'd like to blab? Uh huh....sure you do (ok....I've gone to far). It's your online community...use it....or risk losing it. (sigh)....post ......puleeeze?

[tony]

John,

I got to fly with a friend of my son's friend who has a Navion. It was made by the same company that made the P51.

I couldn't believe the take-off power and the angle of ascent. It has something like four million horsepower. Really like 280 or so, quite a bit for a single engine.

And the owner told me it is an honest five seater.

Riding, and getting some stick time in it, leaves me in awe as to what the honest-to-goodness P51 would do?

[JohnZ]

Yep. The P-51 was a throughbred....through and through. The point of my post though was to get folks to post. Except for you so far...nada.... I'm mystified.

[JohnZ]

While I'm at it.....those guys flew when flyiing was flying. All they had was compass, stopwatch and dead reckoning from landmarks all done with a hand on the stick for about 500 miles to rally point. Awsome! Most don't realize how big the P-51 was for a fighter of it's time. The air intake alone was astonishing to feed those hungry pistons. But at 300 mph...no prob. I'd love to see a computer simulation of a P-51 Mustang up against a P-38 Lightning wouldn't you? My bets on the Mustang.

The whole nine yards,

John

[tony]

Do we have any veterans, or pilots, who have flown the P-51? I'd like to hear about your experiences.

I have a cousin who spent a bucket of money to fly a restored P-51, somewhere in Florida, I think. Not too long ago either.

Speaking of the Blue Angles, I was thrilled to ride with one of their pilots in the two-seater A4D Skyhawk they used to fly. I wrote a long, verbose newspaper story about it and I still grin every time I read it. I think I'll go look for it now. It has been a while since I read it. And the flight is just vivid as ever to me. ;D