P-51D

On 7/17/05 5:42 PM, in article , "Peter
Duniho" spewed:

"gregg" wrote in message
...
If 14,000 of them remained, maybe people would not consider losing one or
two as great a loss. Except, of course, the owners (and assuming no one
got
hurt).

A single P-51 lost still represents well under 1% of the total fleet. What
percentage was lost during their intended use? A lot greater than that, I'd
guess.



Each P-51 represents more than just a number in a fleet, they are history.
And damned good looking history at that. As the numbers slowly diminish,
each one takes on a greater representative portion and the history buffs
among us cringe at each passing.
--
Jeff 'The Wizard of Draws' Bucchino

Cartoons with a Touch of Magic�
http://www.wizardofdraws.com

More Cartoons with a Touch of Magic�
http://www.cartoonclipart.com

Each P-51 represents more than just a number in a fleet, they are history.
And damned good looking history at that. As the numbers slowly diminish,
each one takes on a greater representative portion and the history buffs
among us cringe at each passing.

My son has grown up appreciating the unmistakable song of the Merlin engine
in a P-51 Mustang. He has been able to identify Mustangs in flight,
without looking up, since he was five years old. (He's attended Oshkosh 14
times...)

I suspect he will, one day, hear if for the last time. I hope I don't live
that long.

For those who don't know the song, here it is:

http://alexisparkinn.com/photogallery/Videos/merlin[1].wav

And, just because I love the sound, here's another:

http://alexisparkinn.com/photogallery/Videos/p51[1].wav
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

I suspect he will, one day, hear if for the last time. I hope I don't live
that long.

I expect Mustangs will be flying somewhere long after he's dead, but people may
have to really work to go hear one. After all, you can still see and hear a 1911
Bleriot fly if you're willing to travel to mid-State New York.

George Patterson
Why do men's hearts beat faster, knees get weak, throats become dry,
and they think irrationally when a woman wears leather clothing?
Because she smells like a new truck.

I suspect he will, one day, hear if for the last time. I hope I don't
live that long.

I expect Mustangs will be flying somewhere long after he's dead, but
people may have to really work to go hear one. After all, you can still
see and hear a 1911 Bleriot fly if you're willing to travel to mid-State
New York.

I hope you're right, George.

With insurance more and more dictating who flies what, when, and where, it
doesn't seem likely -- but maybe we'll some day find a way around the
problems of decreasing numbers, increasing values, and chicken-sh*t
liability laws...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

With insurance more and more dictating who flies what, when, and where, it
doesn't seem likely -- but maybe we'll some day find a way around the
problems of decreasing numbers, increasing values, and chicken-sh*t
liability laws...

Well, you might have to take a trip overseas to hear one, then. Perhaps Duxford?

George Patterson
Why do men's hearts beat faster, knees get weak, throats become dry,
and they think irrationally when a woman wears leather clothing?
Because she smells like a new truck.

As long as warbirds fly there will be an attrition rate. What makes me
NUTS is the people who have the priviledge (and $$$) to own/fly these
irreplaceable aircraft and race them putting them at risk of damage or
total loss. Risking the loss of a piece of history, to say nothing of
the pilot, just for the sake of a 400mph thrill ride is insane. I'd
like to see them all restored to their military condition and flown at
air shows. Much less chance of accidents there IMHO.

Will

wrote in message
ups.com...
As long as warbirds fly there will be an attrition rate. What makes me
NUTS is the people who have the priviledge (and $$$) to own/fly these
irreplaceable aircraft and race them putting them at risk of damage or
total loss. Risking the loss of a piece of history, to say nothing of
the pilot, just for the sake of a 400mph thrill ride is insane. I'd
like to see them all restored to their military condition and flown at
air shows. Much less chance of accidents there IMHO.

Will


The people who build and restore warbirds for racing are restoring aircraft
that may not have been restored if it weren't for racing.

Some history.

I read some place, some time, that the average life of a '51 in the
ETO was about 70 hours. If this be true then they were almost used as
throw away birds. If they couldn't be fixed with duct tape they class
26'd the bird and got a new one. I have also heard about over night
engine changes on CO's birds, so there may be some or just a little
truth in these war stories?

In the original issue configuration out of factory they were red lined
at 505 mph. I've had some well over that figure but was careful
pulling out and did not pull max G's. Several friends, who were in the
ETO, said they would dive the bird well over red line to get away from
a 109 which had a weak tail and couldn't follow them and stay
together. I have no reason to not believe these stories but never saw
this put out in an official publication or taught in training.

Following the War there were several instances of the wings coming off
D's in dive/glide bombing runs and they reduced the max IAS to 450
mph.

On sound, there is no other bird that ever sounded like a Merlin in
the '51. Closest I ever heard was a British Halifax with it's four
Merlin's that sounded like a flight of four 51's.

So be it.

Big John
`````````````````````````````````````````````````` `````````````````````````````````````````````````` ``


On 18 Jul 2005 08:22:16 -0700, wrote:

As long as warbirds fly there will be an attrition rate. What makes me
NUTS is the people who have the priviledge (and $$$) to own/fly these
irreplaceable aircraft and race them putting them at risk of damage or
total loss. Risking the loss of a piece of history, to say nothing of
the pilot, just for the sake of a 400mph thrill ride is insane. I'd
like to see them all restored to their military condition and flown at
air shows. Much less chance of accidents there IMHO.

Will

Big John wrote:

I have also heard about over night
engine changes on CO's birds, so there may be some or just a little
truth in these war stories?

"Book" time for an engine change on a B-17 was 5 hours.

George Patterson
Why do men's hearts beat faster, knees get weak, throats become dry,
and they think irrationally when a woman wears leather clothing?
Because she smells like a new truck.

wrote in message
ups.com...
As long as warbirds fly there will be an attrition rate. What makes me
NUTS is the people who have the priviledge (and $$$) to own/fly these
irreplaceable aircraft and race them putting them at risk of damage or
total loss. Risking the loss of a piece of history, to say nothing of
the pilot, just for the sake of a 400mph thrill ride is insane.

What's insane is thinking that it's for some reason important to preserve
these planes. As I already pointed out, if they were so important to
preserve, we shouldn't have been building them to be destroyed in the first
place.

More importantly, it's irrational to be concerned about not being able to
replace the airplanes. They aren't useful objects anymore (except, perhaps,
for the entertainment value they provide at air races and other airshows).
It is a fundamental truth that every last P-51 will eventually be destroyed,
just as every other thing that humanity has ever created will eventually be
destroyed. Even if P-51s were important to our survival as a species (and
they clearly are not), it would be futile to expect any to not eventually be
destroyed.

I find this irrationality even more amusing in the context of a newsgroup
where there were a handful of folks talking about how "irrational" people
with religious faith are. I suppose folks here don't mind being irrational
as long as it's their own preferential brand of irrationality. If it's
someone else's, that's apparently cause for derision.

I'd
like to see them all restored to their military condition and flown at
air shows. Much less chance of accidents there IMHO.

Oh. So it turns out, you're not actually against the destruction of these
warbirds after all. You would just rather see them destroyed for your
pleasure at airshows, rather than for someone else's pleasure at air races.

The only way to guarantee there won't be a crash is to not fly the plane.
Even stored in a building, they will all eventually be destroyed (though
perhaps not in our lifetime). But flying them, even just for display at
airshows, they are unlikely to suffer significantly less attrition than for
air racing (your statement was obviously made without bother to compare
accident statistics for the air races to those for flying displays at
airshows).

Pete