Canon EOS 5D
ƒ/5
105 mm
1/3,200
800
11 responses to “Wild Mustang”
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I used to go to a place on the Hudson Valley called Rhinebeck Aerodrome. They had the most wonderful old Fokkers and other WWI and WWII aircraft.
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Love the Mustangs. My fave WWII era fighter after the Spitfire.
And Philosoap! I used to go the Rhinebeck Aerodrome as a kid too! They used to have fantastic mock dogfights that would involve dropping lots of cherry bombs on the landing field.
BOOM! Good times.
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More of a Hurricane man myself, although a Spitfire did pass overhead last time we had dinner at Valda‘s place, and the sound of those Merlins always chokes me up. As a Brit, taking a light aircraft over the Channel brings a tear to my eye – such a tiny strip of water, even at 100 mph you cross it in minutes, and it was just that strip of water and a few hundred young guys in Hurricanes and Spitfires that kept the Western world out of the clutch of the Nazis. Well, a tiny strip of water followed by the US throwing manpower and hardware behind us.
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For you product and aircraft buffs:
The p51d is one of the great product development stories of all time: one small company (North American), a small team (~30) of smart people driven by pure passion and pride, 90 days from initial order to flying prototype. The original engine was an American made Allison V12, and with that , performance was solid, but then a combined British/American team mated the chassis to the Rolls Royce Merlin V12 used in the later Spitfires…and with its two stage compressor, well…the rest is history…a devastatingly fast, intuitive-to-handle, high flying (and fast climbing) fighter escort that, with drop-able wing tanks, could accompany/defend fleets of allied bombers all the way from Britain to key targets deep inside Germany…and could handily out fly dreaded squadrons of Daimler-Benz V12 powered Me109s.
These planes in their peak model (the 51"d") can keep up with many modern lite jets (an astounding accomplishment for a prop plane) and from a pilots perspective, there is simply nothing that handles like them — except maybe an f18.
Added bonus: the Merlin V12 is the *greatest* sounding engine of all time…just makes the hair go up on the back of your neck!
A young Chuck Yeager (flying a p51d named Glamorous Glen – after his wife Glennis), was the first to shoot down a German Me-262 twin-jet fighter…the first jet fighter ever used in combat. "At high altitude and at full speed, the Mustang could not chase the much faster Me-262 jet fighters, so instead the Mustang pilots followed the German jets to their airfields where they shot them down as they descended at low speed for landing." American ingenuity at it’s finest.
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