Vintage Mustang Belly Landing

[Jack Cook]

P-51D s/n 44-14321 339th FG down on take-off at Fowlmere, UK Feb 1945.
Those drop tanks will buff right out

[Lynn Allen]

Roger that, Gary would whip out the McGiver knife and have them done in no time.....

Lynn

[Steve Nelson]

Looks like he didn't even have time to jettison the drop tanks. Good thing he didn't come down on pavement!

SN

[Django]

Think it got rebuilt or cannabalized?

[JohnTerrell]

There is a whole collection of photos, from which this is part of, posted at Flickr. Beyond the excellent photos of P-47s and P-51s, there are some very rare photos of a P-61, several different bombers at bases in central England, and life and people in general, around central England and within London, late 1944. I highly recommend taking the time to view all of the pages, as there are a great many treasures within the collection.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49024304@N ... 125792619/

[the330thbg]

So did this guy pull an "F-86" landing and just forget to put his gear down?

or was this aircraft just dropped here., there are not even any skid marks behind it.., interesting..

[Django]

It skidded to that orientation. Look at the dirt at the wing root, and how the drop tank is starting to fold under.

[the330thbg]

i can see the skid marks through the props! Looks like landing gear collapsed towards the end. Wing is bent as well

[retroaviation]

See? Even after the airplane has been belly landed, those poor mechanics automatically had the cowling off in order to retorque the heads & banks and adjust the rocker arms. They were just so used to working on that ol' Merlin every time it landed, that muscle memory took over. The reason they are not in this picture is they were off getting a magnet, because one of the "newbies" had dropped their spark plug socket down in the "black hole" between the two banks. Sadly, along with many other various tools, that mechanic's socket was never found again.



Gary

[Lightjug]

There is a whole collection of photos, from which this is part of, posted at Flickr. Beyond the excellent photos of P-47s and P-51s, there are some very rare photos of a P-61, several different bombers at bases in central England, and life and people in general, around central England and within London, late 1944. I highly recommend taking the time to view all of the pages, as there are a great many treasures within the collection.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49024304@N ... 125792619/

All I can say is wow... the pictures are incredible. Thanks for the link

[51fixer]

i can see the skid marks through the props! Looks like landing gear collapsed towards the end. Wing is bent as well

I think the skid marks are from the drop tanks.
Probably happened on takeoff or soon after.
If the gear had been down you would see the tailwheel.
If he had time and altitude he probably would have released drops.
Probably destroyed the scoop. dog house and radiator as well. You can see skin damage along lower fus aft of the wing,
Rich

[the330thbg]

so how did the wing get bent so badly?

[airnutz]

so how did the wing get bent so badly?

When it reached the end of the skid, it probably tipped-up on the port wing momentarily. I had a
Sunbeam convertable dig in to a soft road shoulder and toss me out the passenger door that way once.

[Jack Cook]

Or it simply hit wing first

[airnutz]

Or it simply hit wing first

Yup..my first thought, but the wingtip/LE didn't look "right" for that...