Fragile But Agile - P-51K 44-12016

[steve dickey]

My apologies

Last edited by steve dickey on Tue Sep 14, 2010 11:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Jack Cook]

Well those DPs look original

[Pat]

Not trying to derail the thread, but just out of curiosity, do Cherry fasteners date back to WWII?

[JBrawner]

Not trying to derail the thread, but just out of curiosity, do Cherry fasteners date back to WWII?

well more then likely..... look at the front page of :
http://www.cherryaerospace.com/


"The Cherry® brand dates back to 1940 when the Cherry Rivet Company designed easily-installed blind fasteners, which the aerospace industry quickly adopted as a standard."

but im sure ill be proven wrong some how.

[51fixer]

This panel originally had Cherry Lok rivets. As shown in the pics these have been installed with Cherry Max rivets. A modern and better type of blind rivets.

[JDK]

WARNING: This thread is now in the zone of rivet (date) counters...

Proceed with caution, and check your social skills remain enabled, or check them at the door.

[Zachary]

WARNING: This thread is now in the zone of rivet (date) counters...

Proceed with caution, and check your social skills remain enabled, or check them at the door.

Literally just fell off my chair laughing!!! My vote for post of the year!

[Obergrafeter]

Shouldn't those fastners have invasion stripes on them, be spaced different, be painted olive drab,...............

[ChrisDNT]

WOW, WHAT A BEAUTY (sorry for the caps, but they are justified here) !!!

Nothing can beat a bare metal Mustang, with an elegant finish painted accurately.

Congrats to the restoration team.

[tulsaboy]

I have to admit that I am with Jack on this one- I thought that at some point earlier in this topic, someone had mentioned that a key highlight of this restoration was putting an original dataplate back on the airframe. I am no expert, but do follow dataplates a bit (warning, JDK is right- this is moving off into obscurities....) and that dataplate looks almost nothing like an original. What is its story?

kevin

[51fixer]

Shouldn't those fastners have invasion stripes on them, be spaced different, be painted olive drab,...............

NO
You are thinking of the British made rivets

[Rick65]

I am confused.
Forget the provenance and the data plate issues, it is the great scheme that interests me.
If I read Rich correctly the plane is a composite scheme, with the pilot name and kill markings from it's first pilot and the name "Fragile but Agile" from the second - as per the first photo in the first post.
Presumably the overall scheme was consistent for the unit it flew with, or was that an individual scheme that come with the name?

[bentwingbomber]

Dear All

The assumptions made here in this thread seem to forget how these planes have made it almost seventy years around the world. After WW2 these planes went all over the place and in various states of repair. I've seen wings of different marks mixed with tails of different marks. Remember during a war an air force will build a plane from whatever parts it can grab. This is no exception. I know this airframe quite well. When we first obtained this Mustang at TFC all of the paperwork from Israel and Sweden reported it as 44-63864 (Twilight Tear). The Swedish dataplate it had was "26158" and through Swedish Air Force paperwork "26158" is identified as 44-63864.
The Israeli, Swedish and UK Governments all registered it and import and and exported this as 44-63864. As I understand it, it was only after it was completely disassembled that early Mustang parts were seen in places not visible when the plane was together.
In hindsight, comparing that with the history of Bill Lear's wreck, combined with the marks I saw when I stripped this fuselage, the story comes together. I was one of the first to see the two Japanese flags on the fuselage and the "Bert Lee" name but it didn't mean that much given the Israeli paperwork and the Swedish dataplate. Now, in hindsight, I get it. What must have happened is that in Israel the tails of 44-63864 and this plane were swapped before they left Israel. There was no "masquerading" of this plane. We're all doing the best we can with fragmented, incomplete, and sometimes contradictory records.
Many governments took the US dataplate off or they were stolen, and for that reason many of the planes flying today have recreated dataplates. That is perfectly legal when the feds are aware and approve. I believe that the Bill Lear wreck doesn't have an original dataplate either. I have found a photo of the Bert Lee plane and these are the exact marks that were seen on the fuselage when it was stripped. I also know that 44-12016 was in the 5th Air Force, but not 44-12018; all I can surmise is that the yardbirds didn't have the proper stencil or just messed up. We've all seen countless mistakes made in the field.
I think it's fantastic that this plane is wearing its true colors. It took a complete disassembly to figure it out, and I actually think this might be one of the most prized planes out there, given that it's the only Pacific vet that I know and actually has a kill (a Betty onMarch 11 1945). It's neat that the owner is painting both colors on it to honor the airframe rather than a particular man. Good for them. That's all I'll say.

[Lynn Allen]

Shouldn't those fastners have invasion stripes on them, be spaced different, be painted olive drab,...............

Dang took those words right off my keyboard.....

[DaveM2]

BWB

Excellent post and very informative. All very plausable-the only thing I can't get my head around is why a PTO aircraft would end up being shipped to Europe in August (or later) 1945, when the war in the ETO ended several months earlier and rows of P-51s sat on the Continent awaited redeployment (TO the PTO) , sale, and most cases being scrapped where they stood.
I realize anything about this is pure speculation, but it all helps in our (my) understanding of what went on during the winding down period of WWII-so thoughts on this would be appreciated. Anyone know of a similar story with any other airframes-no matter what type?

On a related subject -anyone have the current status of 44-63864?

TIA
Dave