Army F-51 at Edwards

[K5DH]

Looking at the shape of the canopy, is that a two-seater ship? I guess that would make sense for a chase plane.

[cwmc]

Used to see and hear them all the time when I lived in Lancaster CA. and worked @ Locoweed on the WPA project DC-10 look-a-like. You can hear a MERLIN coming from a long way off in the desert.(or you could when I lived there in the early 70's)

You make me laugh, Grumpspector,
I loved my time in the L-1011. At least if it lost hydraulic pressure on take off the slats would not retract. Those autolands into Amsterdam, London, Paris, etc when all of the McGuzzle Doesless's were diverting to Lisbon were always good too. Of course the MD lobby eventually got the thing CatIII, surely Lockheed didn't have the total lock on government payoff. Look at the MD-80, two hull losses during certification, simply awesome!
Chris...

[51fixer]

Looking at the shape of the canopy, is that a two-seater ship? I guess that would make sense for a chase plane.

I believe it had a back seat but not dual controls.
Fuggly Canopy for sure.
Must be a ton of room for even the back seat guy to wear a "Flashy" Gentex helmet.

[Enemy Ace]

IMHO the Army needs to sell those mustangs onto the civil market.... Very very little US Army history. It's not like they flew combat or anything. I would be happy to build them a very nice model of a mustang and donate it if they will let me take that ugly ol' thang out of their hangar. I may even give them a few bucks to paint a helicopter or two with. It's tying up space some nice blackhawk or apache could be using...haven't they heard the government needs some money to pay it's bills???

[The Inspector]

The airplanes are long gone back to the civilian market they were used in the late 1960's to mid 70's. the long canopy was a CAVALIER mod for back seat head room like the one fitted to 'Crazy Horse' .

CWMC,
I won't go into a long winded debate about the 1011 v. the DC-10. let me just say that I have experience on both and much prefer the design and systems and general layout of the Long Beach cable Car over the desert rat. I see 10's in service every day and also currently repurposed for fighting a fire in Texas, I donot see any Palmdale wannabes doing that, in fact there can't be more than a tiny handful of TRYSTARS being operated anywhere except in the third world, and I seriously doubt a 1011 could have survived being UAL 232.

The 80 wrecking two airframes in certification testing? Isn't that why they do cert testing to beat the crap out of a new design too see where it might fail before you kill 145 innocents? I'll take a quiet, smooth ride in an 80 before a noisy, hard ride in a 737. And from years of experience, I can show you things in the systems of 'Classic' 737's that would make you want to take the train to Hawai`i.

When I was teaching the DC-10, I'd get some mechanic who'd cloud up and sputter 'why...that's just like the 767 is...whaddid those bastards do? steal that from Boeing?'.
'No, the DC-10 first flew in 1969 the 767 first flew in 1981 so who stole from who?'. I look @ the landing gear for the brand new 787 and what I see is straight off the DC-10.
There is very little that is totally new under our local part of the Galaxy low grade hydrogen planet warmer experiment.

[gale_dono]

IMHO the Army needs to sell those mustangs onto the civil market.... Very very little US Army history. It's not like they flew combat or anything. I would be happy to build them a very nice model of a mustang and donate it if they will let me take that ugly ol' thang out of their hangar. I may even give them a few bucks to paint a helicopter or two with. It's tying up space some nice blackhawk or apache could be using...haven't they heard the government needs some money to pay it's bills???

I'd rather see them displayed this way than as yet another WW2 aircraft they never were.

[cwmc]

Hey Grumpspector,
I'm still laughing. It was pretty longwinded, yet I know lots of engineers and am used to their particular brand of social intercourse. So, allow me to retort...
Show me a Lockheed that didn't need a ton of maintenance for every flight hour over it's rival. I think the four hyd systems and location of the engine on the 1011 would've made a SUX incident as controllable as normal, did all four come together under the rear fan, no. They all came together in the belly. I know, lined up perfectly with the wing fans, but our airline put armor all around that area after our first "2 out of four" hyd system loss caused by an uncontained pod engine failure. In 1972. Not after 20 years of service.
Certification accidents didn't find enough, Swissair had to do a little more test crashing for the FAA and Douglas about the little 'ole ice maker. 'Cause I have 13 more years to go on the -80, I can tell you it's still the most unstable piece of crap, with the biggest sell-out of an engine that ever hit the wind (JT-8D my butt). Luckily it's flight control systems are still DC-4, er...I mean -9 so when the crap hits the fan it's an easy glide to the nearest concrete. Only twice for me, so far.

And amen to the 60's Army paint, if I never see another overdone Pebble Beach Concours restoration parading in stencils and stars and bars pretending to be authentic WWII, it'll be too soon.
See, on topic!
Chris...

[RareBear]

The Army Aviation Museum website only lists one F-51D, 44-72990, and it's shown as not being on public display.

Walt

[JohnB]

The Army Aviation Museum website only lists one F-51D, 44-72990, and it's shown as not being on public display.Walt

So, per the old Air International article I mentioned, does anyone know what became of their Cavalier?
(Hopefully it was sold or traded for something more relevant to their collection and the plane is flying in civil hands rather than sitting in storage).

[valdez25]

cwmc, TWA by chance?

[Randy Haskin]

The Army Aviation Museum website only lists one F-51D, 44-72990, and it's shown as not being on public display.Walt

So, per the old Air International article I mentioned, does anyone know what became of their Cavalier?
(Hopefully it was sold or traded for something more relevant to their collection and the plane is flying in civil hands rather than sitting in storage).

Both of the ex-Army Cavalier F-51s are at museums:

68-15795 is at the Minnesota ANG Museum.
68-15796 is at the USAF Armaments Museum at Eglin AFB.

Neither of them are in accurate paint schemes (heh heh).

[Chappie]

What kind of USAAF history does this Mustang have?


Chappie

[gary1954]

What kind of USAAF history does this Mustang have?


Chappie

ummmm....maybe no USAAF history, but seen at the Edwards AFB open house in May of 1969, so surely its a .....warbird?

[The Inspector]

According to Baugher s/n's 44-15753 thru 44-15802 were cancelled and these two s/n's are in that block.

[51fixer]

According to Baugher s/n's 44-15753 thru 44-15802 were cancelled and these two s/n's are in that block.

The Cavaliers have a S/N which begins with 68, not 44.
They are considered new machines ordered as such in the 1960s.
68-15795
68-15796
They were made from parts IIRC and weren't considered an existing airframe with a past history IIRC.