Warbird Information Exchange

former Australian mustang A68-641 has surfaced for sale in the USA for $825KUSD and 2/3rd through its restoration.

Advertised on barnstormers at http://www.barnstormers.com/cat.php under the north american entries in the warbirds section.

http://www.barnstormers.com/classified_files/168380-p51.doc

It was a US built P51-D that served with the RAAF from May 1945 through to 1948 when it was allocated into storage. Its fuselage is listed as being sold in 1953 from Tocumwal according to its entry on ADF-Serials




I wonder where it has been all these years and how it got to the USA, I had at first assumed it was one of the former "Warbirds Museum" P-51's from Mildura but they were A68-674 and 679?

Interestingly when checking their IDs on the ADF-serial list I also noticed a large number of other RAAF P51-D's (many in the 660 - 673 serial range) were sold out of Tocumwal in 1953, many sold just as fuselages and a significant number (9+) are listed as later becoming registered on the US civil register?

Does anyone know this history behind all of these purchases and delivery to the US, were they purchased for conversion to Cavelier aircraft, or for refurbishment and resale to South American Air Forces?, or simply taken over to support private restorations? 1953 seems very early days for acquiring "warbird" spare parts from Australia, when there would have still been mustangs lying around in the US?

Does anyone have a full list of the current former RAAF Mustangs flying in the USA inclusive of these "600" series serials that are NA built P51's rather than CAC built aircraft?

regards

Mark Pilkington

_________________
20th Century - The Age of Manned Flight
"from Wrights to Armstrong in 66 years -WOW!"

The only Aussie airframes that went to Cavalier were the Emu Atomic test aircraft.

Or quite possibly the a/c is long gone, and the id has been transferred to another airframe!

T J

_________________
Make my day, punk!