Warbird Information Exchange

In following the Shangri La thread an old question came back into my head.

One picture in the thread shows P51 414017 on the deck running I guess for take off.

Now a number of years ago when I was at Air Heritage I did allot of work on recovering a P51 from the main gate of the PA National Guard at Pittsburgh Inter Airport tail number 484900 now know as the NAS P51. While doing this work there was always this talk about this airplane doing take offs and landings from carriers, also talk was with 51s landing speed there had to have been a hook on the tail.

Ok, now we go get the airplane and put in Air Heritage hangar, so I go into the tail and look for any thing that would have prove that the hook was there at one time. Also I looked under the tail and it looked to me that from the skin that a hook had never been there.

So does anyone here have any pictures of 484900 on a carrier deck or any records that say it was done. Or could it be possible that 900 was on the carrier with 414017.

One more thing would the P51 have really needed a tail hook to do the landings. In relooking at the pictures in the post you can see a hook on 414017.

I'm taking it that there is no interest in doing a WIX Channel on Internet Chat Relay.

as far as I know, there was only 1 P-51 to do carrier landings, and yes, it needed a tail hook, as do all Navy planes. While it might be possiable to do a landing without a hook if you had a clear deck, in WWII, all the carriers were straight decks, with the foreward part full of parked planes. You had 1 shot at making the landing, if your hook skipped, or you missed a wire, you were either going into the barrier, into a bunch of parked planes, or over the side for a swim.

_________________
Matt Gunsch, A&P, IA, Warbird maint and restorations
Jack, You have Debauched my sloth !!!!!!
We tried voting with the Ballot box, When do we start voting from the Ammo box, and am I allowed only one vote ?
Check out the Ercoupe Discussion Group on facebook

It is possible that the tail cone was replaced after the carrier testing had concluded. It would have had some beef up internally to begin with.
Rich

_________________
Rich Palmer

Remember an Injured Youth
benstear.org
#64- Stay Strong and Keep the Faith

BOOM BOOM, ROUND ROUND, PROPELLER GO

Don't Be A Dilbert!

Old related link.

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7145&highlight=p51+carrier

The hook seemed attached close to the tail wheel end.

Bad pic, but the hook is there.