North American P-51 Mustang
The North American P-51 Mustang was an all-metal low-wing
monoplane
Pursuit aircraft
with
an inline engine, and a large protruding air intake on the bottom of
the fuselage just aft of the cockpit location. Originally
developed in response to a requirement of the British Purchasing
Commission as an alternative to the P-40, these aircraft eventually
served with the USAAC, the UK, Austalia, Canada, China, France, Polish
Forces in Great Britain, and South Africa during the war. In
addition the USSR recieved a number of these types but did not use
them in front line service during the war. After the war several
additional nations procured some of these aircraft, including Costa
Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia,
Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, the Philippines,
Somalia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, and Uruguay.
Per reference
[8] it
took its first flight on 26 October 1940, and entered service
in January 1942 with the Royal Air Force. The P-51 was built
in several variants,
with
the primary variants analyzed
at
this website being:
The P-51B
and P-51C were in general identical, with the P-51B being built in the
North American Plant in Inglewood CA while the P-51C was built in
Dallas TX. The P-51B/P-51C aircraft were configured with a
razorback fuselage while the P-51D was configured qith a bubble canopy.
Per
reference [8] over 15,000 of this type aircraft of all variants
were built.
As
shown in the images below distinguishing features of this
aircraft including;
- an
inline engine
- a razorback fuselage shape on early variants
- a bubble canopy on later variants
- a low
mounted wing
- inward folding retractable landing gear
[Image
Sources: Public Domain via Ref [8] - as
annotated by this site]
Notes:
This website
has been developed with a number of low cost or free programs including
Hot Metal Pro, KompoZer, MicroSoft Designer and Da Button Factory.com
Rev 3-3-25
