P-51A and P-51D

[tomo pauk]

Bill, the P-51B to K will be flying 15 minutes at 61 in Hg (mil power), and yet another 5 minutes at 67 in Hg (war emergency power). The P-51A will be flying just 5 min at 57 in Hg (WER), and, if it wants to push for another 15 min, it will revert to 44 in Hg (= mil power).
There is really no much point to compare the Allison Mustang (a fine fighter, with it's limitations) with Merlin Mustang (a much better fighter, with far smaller limitations), if we don't want to use what is under the hood.

 

[drgondog]

Tomo - True that changing the engine and coupling the 1650-7 with 44-1 fuel and increasing boost fro 61" to 67" brought the 51D to a lower altitude cross over speed. That said here is the RAF report covering the conversion of the F.20R to F.4R Allison by changing supercharger gear to 9.6:1.

P-51A @60 inch WEP (and also 4090 fpm climb rate at 2200 ft)
SL 38o mph
5K 401 mph
10K 395 mph

P-51D-15-NA @67" WEP (ROC= 3600fpm SL to 5K
SL 375 mph
5K 394 mph
10K 417 mph

When you look at current Warbird comparisons where max permissible is METO the P-51A at POF will outrun any of the stock P-51B/D's from SL through 10K..

When you compare against the Mark III/Merlin 100 experiments/V-1 chaser those will outrun everything on the deck except the P-51H at 90"

 

[tomo pauk]

Thank you. The P-51A, but with F4R engine, should be faster than P-51 with same engine when -A is without racks, due to less gubs & chutes.

The 2-stage Merlin will pull 67 in Hg on 130 grade fuel, the 44-1 (150 grade) fuel enabled, IIRC, 75 in Hg.

 

[Milosh]

Did British Mustang IVs use 25lb boost?

 

[drgondog]

Milosh - yes. The Mk IV flight tests in spitfireperformance.com showed 2 +25 lbs
SL = 379 mph
4K = 398 mph
10K = 397 mph

To Tom's point the P-51D's at 67" and Mark IV at +25 lbs both had wing racks

Tomo - for the finer points of the debate - wing racks weren't installed on the A for the flight tests and were standard on the D
Yes, 72 to 75 inches were available with 44-1 fuel in the P-51D. The Mark IV at 75" does 379 mph at SL ~ 1 mph faster than the A and ~ 2 mph slower than the P-51A @60" at 4K... but the P-51A is without wing racks.
Now, back to the point. Pilots that a.) love the Mustang - all versions, and b.) have flown all the versions all agree the P-51A is slightly faster through 10,000 feet.
In the case of the POF and the Hinton's plus Rob Patterson plus Chris Fahey - plus the Friedkin's who fly both types in formation where throttle management is very noticeable - each will tell you the same thing:

The P-51A on the wing has to be throttled back when flying in formation up to METO if you want to keep from surging ahead.

 

[Mike Williams]

Hmm, regarding P-51A vrs P-51B/D, this might be of interest: Power Required and Power Available for the P-51A, P-51B and P-47B Airplanes

 

[GregP]

So here is our P-51A leaving for Reno with John Hinton flying it. Not much except startup and taxi, but its on the way.


View: https://www.facebook.com/planesoffameairmuseum/videos/10154001418408790/

 

[GregP]

John Maloney qualified in Mrs. Virginia (not Miss Virginia as I reported earlier) at 356.0 mph. It is a basically stock P-51A with a nothing-special Allison V-1710. They DID add a water injection ADI system. Don't know if they used it.

Rob Patterson qualified at 357.6 mph in Wee Willy, a basically stock P-51D. After these fast laps, their next laps were a couple mph slower, but I can see we don't have a decisive winner. I didn't know if they'd push them, but it looks like they did for at least one qualifying lap. Rob was the long-time pilot of Lady Jo, and has a lot of time around Reno. John Maloney has flown the Flugwerk Fw 190 around Reno several years as well as a few other unusual Reno Unlimited participants.

Steve-O Hinton in Voodoo stroked around at 475 mph for a lap and went back to 471 mph. Not even pushing it.

A friend and former museum pilot Joel Swagger took the Sanders Argonaut, a Sea Fury Mk II, around at 383 mph. Not bad considering it is running an R-2800 instead of the R-3350.

Dennis Sanders took their basically stock Sea Fury TMK 20 to 386 mph.

Brian Sanders got Dreadnought up to 440 mph. That's 3 Sea Furys for the Sanders family, counting Joel. These guys LIKE the Sea Fury! Pretty airplanes, one and all.

John Dowd got Lylia, a modified Yak-11, up to 367 mph. Not bad at all.

Czech Mate, another modified Yak-11, got to 454 mph on an R-2000. This Yak gets faster every year! And ... on a "small" engine, too.

Jeff Lavelle hit 403 mph in his Glassair II in Sport Class! These guys are getting a heck of a lot more than 300 HP from their Lycomings. I hear talk of 650 HP from a souped up IO-540!

Not the definitive P-51 separation we thought might happen between Wee Willy and Mrs. Virginia, but both speeds are very near what everyone expects a stock P-51 to run if it is being pushed. I've said many times in here that a basically stock P-51 of any variety pre-H will run about 360 mph. Looks like it was a decent estimate. Nice to know Steve Hinton isn't shy about running a lap or two at high power settings with the Museum's airplane or his own Wee Willy.

So ... not much difference at Reno as far as speed goes between an A and a D, with two as-stock-as-exists airframes with good but not hopped-up engines and stock props. Wee Willy is Limited class, so the prop meets stock prop limits. Mrs. Virginia is Experimental Exhibition, but the prop meets stock specs. I think is is in that category because that's what it was licensed in back in 1980 and nobody has bothered to change it over since then. In fact, up until it got the "once over" for the Reno run, it basically hadn't had much work since 1980.

Cheers and keep 'em flying.

 

[GregP]

Here's an Unlimited race start from inside the pace plane. Steve and Chris invert to watch the first half lap or so.

 

[GregP]

Sport Class engine failure, emergency landing, and and expensive day, all rolled into one. One 600 HP Lycoming is trashed in a heartbeat.

 

[Old Wizard]

Wow!

 

[GregP]

Yeah, 379 mph from a Glassair III is pretty quick. It's fun watching Elliot fly, but I'm sure it won't be fun paying for that engine.

 

[bobbysocks]

could have been a lot worse. had he not been able to make the field and had to belly her in.

side sticks intrigue me. a plane I was looking at had one. I didn't know if I would like it or could get used to it.

 

[gjs238]

side sticks intrigue me. a plane I was looking at had one. I didn't know if I would like it or could get used to it.

Airbus A380
I wonder if some folks have issues if the stick is on their weak-hand side.

 

[GregP]

Steve-O Hinton won the Unlimited Gold race in Modified P-51D Voodoo at Reno. Congratulations Steve-O on Championship number 7! James Consalvi came in second in Czech Mate, a modified Yak-11.


John Dowd took the Silver race in Lylia, a modified Yak-11, followed by John Maloney in Mrs. Virgina, a P-51A. Rob Patterson came in third in P-51D Wee Willy.


Rick Vandam took the Jet Gold in an L-39 and David Culler took Silver in another L-39.


It's unofficial as yet, but it looks like Jeff Lavelle in his Glasair III took Sport Gold at 383 mph followed by John Parker in a Thunder Mustang at 371 mph.


Congratulations to all!

 

[GregP]

And I thought you guys were airplane fans ...

 

[bobbysocks]

sounds like they cleaned up...good for them.

 

[BiffF15]

could have been a lot worse. had he not been able to make the field and had to belly her in.

side sticks intrigue me. a plane I was looking at had one. I didn't know if I would like it or could get used to it.

Bobbysocks & GJS,

The side stick is totally natural. If you are sitting in a recliner watching TV you will end up with each of your arms laying atop the recliners arms, fat stick in one hand, cocktail in another and not with one arm in the middle like in a single seat fighter of WW2 timeframe. I fly the A320 and prefer the sidestick to the wheel (B757/767). Fly by wire also covers a lot of ham fisting as well.

I have about 6k hours, with 750 or so in the RC-26 / Metroliner, with about half that 750 in the left seat. I have also flown the 320 sim in the left seat and even if it's my weak hand I prefer the sidestick.

Cheers,
Biff

 

[Balljoint]

Don't you pretty much learn to fly with your weak hand?

 

[BiffF15]

Don't you pretty much learn to fly with your weak hand?

Most folks are right handed and at least the military teaches you to fly with that. However, just like switching from a left hand drive to right in a car, you pick it up quickly.

Cheers,
Biff