Couple of plane images.

[A. F Medic]

Information

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[frankderrico]

Nice---Thanks.....Frank

[jon_norstog]

AF,

Are those models? They look great! I went looking for info on the P-70 and found the identical photo on the web! It says it was from a Turkish website.

jn

[jon_norstog]

Did some more looking around. The P51 and P70/A20 were in with a mix of color photos put up by the Denver Post. But the P70 still looks like a model to me - look at those guys. They're not quite right.

jn

[frankderrico]

Hey Jon, look again that pic captchers the moment.
I think it is real.....Frank

[Bob Womack]

re: P-51

Wow, thanks for the beautiful picture and a mystery to solve!

When I was a boy, I had comprehensive book on the P-51 from which I learned a bit of this history. That looks like a gorgeous study of an early, rare, British contract P-51. It was powered by an American Allison engine, as opposed to the Packard-licensed Rolls Royce engine the production versions of the P-51 carried.

What happened was that North American Aviation was asked by the British to come up with a lend/lease fighter. N.A. designed their plane around the only domestic engine available at the time, the Allison V-1710. While the British loved the new plane for attack work, they weren't happy with it as a fighter due to altitude limitations of the American engine. So, the British suggested that North American use the current version of the British Rolls Royce Merlin engine to boost performance, and offered to license the Packard auto company to build it, so they could improve their fighter.

However, before production of the Packard Merlin was complete, the Brits ran out of money to purchase the P-51s. Forty-seven of the original Allison-powered planes produced under the British contract ended up being handed over to the U.S.Army Air Corps. Those few planes featured the British armament compliment - conspicuously featuring four 20 mm. canons protruding from the wings. The presence of those cannons, as well as the very early Army Air Corps. blue roundel insignia with white star, are the "spotting features" that lead me to believe that the plane in the picture is one of those first forty-seven planes. The Americans were impressed with these P-51s but had no money in the budget that year to order any more fighters. They did, however, have money for attack planes, so they commissioned North American Aviation to strengthen the wing of the Allison-powered P-51 design for and designated it the A-36 attack plane. Visually differentiating those later planes was armament featuring fifty-caliber machine guns, flush-mounted in the wings.

When the Packard Merlin engine was mated to this strengthened airframe, the resultant aircraft had such fantastic, multi-role performance that the U.S. snatched all the resultant contract options from under the British and the legend was born. Ironic, eh?

Bob