P-51D

Big John:
My sources have no information as to the cause of the accident. It was
an older engine, however the owner had a reputation for good care.
Vlado

Vlado

First thing I thought of was you when I heard about the accident.
Thank the Lord you weren't involved.

By 'old' do you mean years or hours? After WWII we changed engines
around 300 hours +/-. Some we changed under 100 hours and others a
little over 300. Can't remember any going to 400.

One problem we had was internal coolant seals leaking either from
drying out or ????

They gave each Squadron 5 attrition birds and we rotated them through
the fleet each month. This let us use short time pickling vs long term
pickle/unpickle. Setting for 30 days without flying, a lot of things
would go bad and take extra hours and parts to get flyable again.

What does the average private War Bird now fly a year? 25-50 hours?

Thinking about why engine quit at 50-100 feet:

Bad gas (Jet A)

Taking off on empty tank?

Is there a single point of failure that would take out both mags? I
forget how they are driven.

Looking at the pictures Jay sent me, to repair will probably take a
wing, engine, prop, horizontal stab and massive repair where radiators
were torn out destroying a large section of bottom of fuselage.

Lots of TLC and devotion to that airframe.

Tnx for info.

Fly safe.

Big John
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On 20 Jul 2005 21:09:19 -0700, "vlado" wrote:

Big John:
My sources have no information as to the cause of the accident. It was
an older engine, however the owner had a reputation for good care.
Vlado