"ColFord, that is the 'rub' we all are experiencing . . . lack of accurate info. I am not dreaming up what I am seeing (20+ years of searching) and do not expect this situation to fade any time soon. I do appreciate your comments and the work you and drgondog are doing. I am also a fan of the F4U Corsair. Most authorities believe that the -1A was never used to denote the F4U-1A variant. But I have found USMC maintenance forms dated 1944 with the designation F4U-1A at the top of the form. So, I am careful to never say 'never!'
So my question is, who and why has used the designation F-6B, etc to denote a Photo-Recon converted Mustang P-51A? Is in an inappropriate extrapolation?"
Designations are a pain in the butt, and the more time I spend in the Archives (will they ever reopen?) the more I find revisions to what we all "know" to be true.
With -1 Corsairs, the BuAer had intended to revise all Birdcage Corsairs to raised cockpit standards and denied Vought permission to use a new designation "-1A" to differentiate the original cockpit from the raised cockpit. However, Vought received permission to use "-1A" in company records to clarify which drawings went with the revised cockpit. The original Birdcages were clapped out by the time the "-1A" started reaching units -- not worth the cost of revision -- so the Vought designation came into common (but not official) use.
Similarly, Vought used the F4U-1B designation for internal records on Brit-modified Corsairs. Then came the question of designations for British -1As - Vought wondered if they should be F4U-1ABs or F4U-1BAs. BuAer cried Nonsense! and reminded Vought that none of these designations was official.
To avoid further internal confusion, the cannon-armed modifications became -1Cs and the twin-pylon mods became -1Ds. The cannon-armed -4s became F4U-4Cs until 1946 when the Navy decided that the "B" suffix would be used for special armament mods and all the F4U-1Cs became F4U-1Bs.
TYPO!!! I should have types that the F4U-4Cs were redesignated F4U-4Bs More below...
The Army was just as bad. The "F-xx" designations originally went for mapping aircraft, but most early war mapping aircraft (such as 1942 versions of the mapping B-17s and B-24s) were not redesignated. Likewise, the tac recon Mustangs flew under their respective P-51 designations. Somewhere along the line headquarters decided to go back and "correct" that oversight. I found some correspondence on this, but never filed it in my Mustang files. (I've a six-foot stack of papers that I'm slowly working my way through, but I didn't really retire to become a file clerk in my own basement!)
One Mustang document that might be of interest here relates to the original P-51B and P-51C designations. The addition of the Merlin engine led to some aerodynamic concerns and minor repositioning of the wing. The P-51B was originally to be produced with the Merlin, but without the repositioned wing; the new wing was planned for the P-51C. Obviously, both models went into production with the repositioned wing, but I've never seen the original designations explained in any of the many Mustang books.
Then there's my all-time favorite Wright Field inter-office memo on the P-51, dated 28 August 1942. It doesn't relate directly to designations, but I'll drop it in here in its entirety:
Left by Alec Burton together with the dope on the Griffin 61, this date. "Dutch" Kindleberger says the Merlin 28 is out for installation in the P-51, but they are going full blast on the Merlin 61. About all the re-design necessary is to move the wing forward 3 inches and down 1 inch; also, the nose will be dropped a little to give better visibility than in the P-51.
If the aerodynamics isn't ruined, looks like they might have a pretty good airplane.
That one should be in the dictionary next to "understatement...
Cheers,
Dana
