P51Mstg wrote:
OK.... I remember the black and red Hellcat. That crash and flipping it over on its back was pretty incredible..... Amazing nobody (I'm assuming that) got killed.
More than that I looked up Miss Ashley (P-51 N100DD...... Not the LEARJETWING Airplane)..... I was in FL in 1995 or 1996 when it was at Kissimmee in Tom Riley's hangar before it got shipped to the Netherlands. I can say it was one ROUGH looking P-51 from what I recall, I don't think I took any pictures. From what I can see now, its well on its way to being restored and getting ready to fly.
Mark H
Jack had purchased N100DD to use as a testbed for the single-stage Merlin he wanted to use in Tsunami. Chuck Hall crash landed it at Reno in '83, and I can remember seeing it at Chino as they were repairing it--LOTS of bondo. So with that in mind, it was repaired with more of a 'racing' mentality, not a 'warbird' mentality. Gary bought it from Jack a few months before he went off to summer camp. After that endeavor was over they changed the registration to N345 and Gary flew/raced that plane for half a dozen years. It looked good on the outside, and I know Gary took good care of it. I recall Ralph Payne saying that the guy in Europe who Gary ended up selling the plane to had been bugging him for years, and essentially finally 'gave in'.
But once Gary sold it, I think it was disassembled and stored in a hanger for several years. So it being pretty 'rough' may have been a combination of the repair job from the racing, as well as having sat around exposed.
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.I miss Jim, & a bunch more pilot's like him we have lost over the years.