P51A

[rogerwilko]

If you go to wikipedia under mustangs this picture blows up huge to show a smiling pilot. No wonder! Wonder what his name is (was)?

 

[drgondog]

Bob Chilton is a possibility

 

[rogerwilko]

I'll look him up.

 

[drgondog]

Chief Test pilot NAA

 

[Airframes]

Think it probably is him Bill. A caption to this photo in one of my books names him.

 

[nuuumannn]

I know this is going to sound pedantic, but its an early P-51 as opposed to P-51A. The first Mustangs the USAAC received were diverted from RAF Mustang IA production batch and were designated NA-91 by the manufacturer, but simply P-51 by the Army. A number were fitted with cameras and became F-6s. The P-51A differed in the armament fit in that it had four .50s in the wings, not the cannon as this one clearly has. Nice picture. The wiki caption confirms this: "P-51 Mustang on a test flight, October 1942; this particular aircraft (41-37416?) may have been allocated to the RAF as a Mustang 1A."

 

[GrauGeist]

The first NA-91s that the USAAC acquired, had the 4 20mm Hispano cannon with the cowl armament deleted (like this photo suggests) and were only 150 units. Once the USAAF took over, these NA-91s were redesignated P-51 Apache.

 

[Koopernic]

The aircraft has absolutely no tail number or specific identifiers at all. How is this even legal?

 

[nuuumannn]

The first NA-91s that the USAAC acquired, had the 4 20mm Hispano cannon with the cowl armament deleted (like this photo suggests) and were only 150 units. Once the USAAF took over, these NA-91s were redesignated P-51 Apache.

Despite the US ordering 150 of them, only 57 actually went to the USAAC, the other 93 went to the RAF as Mustang IAs and of the 57, 55 were F-6A recon aircraft. The remaining two became XP-78s, the original US designation of the Merlin engined Mustang and were later redesignated XP-51Bs. These were fitted with British Merlin 61s and were the first American Merlin engined Mustangs, although the British flew a Merlin engined Mustang before the Americans. The name Apache was assigned to the A-36 dive bomber. The A-36 was the first Mustang variant to go into US service.