Originally Posted by
rpcrowe
Very nice shot - perhaps the color balance could be tweaked a tad away from blue-green...
I love these historic flights, IMO, the North American P-51 Mustang was one of the most beautiful aircraft to come out of the Second World War; equaled (again, IMO) only by the Supermarine Spitfire.
Actually the P-51 as per the original order from the U.K. to North American was equipped with Allison engines and did not have the high altitude performance and range needed for a fighter. Especially a fighter to escort the bombers into Germany. The addition of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine gave extra performance and range; making this one of the best (if not the best) fighter aircraft to come out of the war. The British Spitfire also ran the Merlin engine and was another of the great fighters of WW-II..
A variant of the P-51 was the A-36 Apache which was a ground attack aircraft built on the P-51 design with Allison engines but equipped with dive brakes and two 20mm canon plus two fifty caliber machine guns. The problem with the A-36 was the in-line air cooled engines were very susceptible to ground fire. Far more susceptible than the air cooled engines of the P-47 Thunderbolt.