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Maybe... and I've never really seen a photo that does the machine justice.
my fingerprints might also be on the logbooks...
Amsel, what about the Yak 3, 11? they're not exactly ugly aircraft. I will give you that point about the Polikarpovs though
Wasn't that an attempt to marry a P-51 with a Griffon engine?The MB5 is also very nice. It has been mentioned only once before in this forum so I thought I'd add to that.
Teaser (
Wasn't that an attempt to marry a P-51 with a Griffon engine?
Aussie modification, right?
Elvis
You've flown the La-9?
Never heard of an attempt outside of Reno racing to do that with a P-51 but you may be thinking of the Commonwealth CA-15, which was in fact an entirely new design with no commonality with the P-51?
This aircraft in the photo, the MB 5, was a product of Martin Baker, more usually associated with ejector seats and was also utterly unrelated to the P-51. It was evolved independantly through M-B's experience with their MB 2 and MB 3 fighters and 'could have' been a superb service fighter if not for the end of the war. It was designed not only to be phenominally fast (460mph plus) but was also designed to be extremely easy to maintain and repair in the field.
My bad. Thanks for the info.
Elvis
Hmmm....For me, the Spit or P-51D.
As to those who chose the F4U, I can only say that beauty is, indeed in the eye of the beholder.
This is an F2G model with the background photoshopped in (hence even more beautiful in real life) so I wonder what prescription of eyeglasses you have what you really need?
I do think the spit is a beautiful plane but I would never fly a merlin into combat if I had a choice of something with a radial engine. Nick a coolant line and the engine is toast. Many are the stories of these big radials sustaining what would be catastrophic damage for most other types of engines and still coming home.
That capability adds beauty in my opinion.