In rec.aviation.military Roger Halstead wrote:
: On 7 Nov 2003 12:37:59 -0400, Gregg Germain
: wrote:

:In rec.aviation.military Charles Talleyrand wrote:
:
:: There are lots of P51s out there, so they are not rare enough.
:: Further, they are said to be even harder to fly than normal for
:: vintage and type.
:
: Where does it say P-51's are hard to fly? Or harder to fly than
: "normal"?

: Every thing is relative.

That's why I added "Or harder to fly than 'normal'" and why I put
normal in quotes.

I'm curious as to how the conclusion was reached - it's certainly
harder to fly than a Cessna 152, but not nearly as hard to fly as the
space shuttle.

I'm assuming he compared them to aircraft contemporary with the P-51
since he used the word "vintage".

Was it harder to fly than the P-39? the 39 has some tough spin
characteristics.

Other than the 51 being somewhat less stable when the aft gas tank
was full, I don't know of any other difficult characteristics.

Just curious what he meant by "harder".


--- Gregg
"Improvise, adapt, overcome."

Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Phone: (617) 496-1558