Warbird Information Exchange

Over the years there have been many attempts at producing a Mustang replica/look a
like (I don't call it a replica to appease the word police because technically, it's not a replica).
Wiki lists eight designs of varying degrees of faithfulness, size and price.

ScaleWings of Germany (with s factory in Poland) has been building 72% scale SW-51 Mustangs since 2021.
They're not a kit but buyers can go to Poland for a period to help build the aircraft to keep within the FAA's 51% rule...that makes it a amateur build/homebuilt which simplifies licensing and maintenance.
They have sold about 60 aircraft in the last four years and deliver 16 a year.

They're powered by s Turbocharged Rotax 160 hp engine which gives the aircraft a respectable 165 kts cruise speed.
To compare the relative sizes between the new and the old, the ScaleWings ship has a 26' wingspan, and 22' length compared to a P-51's 37' and 32' respectively.
It features a Garmin glass cockpit and comes standard with two (custom leather) seats.

A fairly comprehensive article from FLYING magazine can be found at...(that's where I sourced the photo below).

https://www.flyingmag.com/we-fly-scalew ... 0362067C7R

The price...as you'd expect it is not exactly cheap, but it's about 1/6 th of the price the real thing at $600,000 (more or less). I haven't priced new glass cockpit Cessna or Cirrus lately, but I think that's about the cost for one of of those

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

I think "look-alike" is a good term, that could be applied to a fair number of "replicas" or "reproductions", and likely a few that are presented as being the "real thing".

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Kevin McCartney

I don't think that firm, or any of the others mentioned by Wiki producing sub-scale homebuilts would ever call their aircraft reproductions.

The word replica is pretty freely used when it comes to mechanical things.
A kit built "replica" of a Shelby Cobra is a lot closer to being accurate than these aircraft, at least they are a body on frame car usually powered (but not always) by a Ford V-8. On the debit side, they have fiberglass bodies of different proportions, different instruments, and usually brakes and suspensions.

The homebuilt Mustangs, have zero parts commonality with real Mustangs. Some of the early ones were wooden, others are carbon fiber.

Whether or not total restorations or rebuilds qualify as "real" Mustangs is a matter of personal opinion.
But to the FAA, and the people who spend their millions buying them, they are legally real.
I'm not going to rain on someone's parade by playing word games by telling a warbird owner his prized possession doesn't meet MY level of authenticity.

The fact remains, without rebuilds, most of us would only see Mustangs in museums.

As far as these look alikes, more power to 'em. They're more fun to look at than a Cirrus.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

It's funny, when I saw the cover of that issue ( I get it on iPad) I thought- " cool, mustangs are on the cover!" . Whoops, nope. They look great.

It's funny, when I saw the cover of that issue ( I get it on iPad) I thought- " cool, mustangs are on the cover!" . Whoops, nope. They look great.

Scale Wings did a demonstration of one at Oshkosh back in 2022. They're impressive airplanes. These and the Thunder Mustang are the best looking of the scale P-51 replicas in my opinion.

IMG_0998

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Matt

I recall seeing a Thunder Mustang at the Ezell shop in 2004, very impressive aircraft.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

ScaleWings had one on display at Reno in 2023 (I don't remember seeing it flying but I missed a lot) and I was very impressed at the surface detail: rivets and fabric tape were reproduced in the skin as per the real deal. It was very pretty but unmistakably a scale replica, and the videos I've seen of them flying didn't impress me overly much as the performance wasn't what I'd expected. In their defence I do wonder if they'd been conservative as the aircraft was so new.

DSC00194 by Zac Yates, on Flickr
DSC00196 by Zac Yates, on Flickr
DSC00195 by Zac Yates, on Flickr
DSC00197 by Zac Yates, on Flickr
DSC00199 by Zac Yates, on FlickrDSC00198 by Zac Yates, on Flickr

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Zac in NZ
#avgeek, modelbuilder, photographer, writer. Callsign: "HANDBAG".
https://linktr.ee/zacyates

"It's his plane, he spent the money to restore it, he can do with it what he wants. I will never understand what's hard to comprehend about this." - kalamazookid, 20/08/2013
"The more time you spend around warbirds the sooner you learn nothing, is simple." - JohnB, 24/02/22

The out of scale pilots heads are always a give-away.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

They were at Oshkosh last year. They got flashing lights in the gun ports...

Phil

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A man's got to know his limitations.