P-51D-25 MUSTANG
78th FS Big Beautiful Doll
CFS3 - V4.00.164

This aircraft was built by Gregory SARGE Pierson using version 4.00.164 of the AvHistory 1% Assembly Line process.  It is based on the MS stock P-51 and has been repainted by John BRAVO/4 Whelan as The Big Beautiful Doll



The P-51D-25  Mustang tail number 44-72218 was the 192nd aircraft of a batch of 3000 P-51Ds ordered on 7th June 1944 just 24 hours after D-Day.  With the call sign 472218, it was coded WZ-I while flown in the European Theatre of Operations and carried the nose art of Big Beautiful Doll.

   

It was flown by Colonel John Landers Commanding Officer of the78th Fighter Group, who flew a series of P-38s and P-51s, all of which were named Big Beautiful Doll.  Col Landers finished the war with 14.5 victories plus 20 additional ground victories.



Its interesting to note that the top row of Kill markings are for 6 Japanese Aircraft as Col Landeres flew in both in the PTO & ETO and was an ACE in both.

Almost all Block-25 and subsequent Ds had underwing hardpoints not only for bombs and fuel tanks but also for various types of rocket launchers. These included zero-length stubs for six 5-inch rockets or as many as ten if no drop tanks were carried.

Alternatively, "Bazooka" tubes could be carried in triple clusters. There were a few field conversions to special armament fits, examples including two tanks and six 100-lb bombs, four 100-lb bombs, plus 36 fragmentation bombs, or four 75-Imp gall drop tanks. CBI aircraft usually had a direction-finding loop antenna ahead of the fin.

The P-51D began to arrive in Europe in quantity in March of 1944. The 55th Fighter Group was the first to get the P-51D, trading in its P-38s for the new bubble-topped fighters. The change from the torqueless twin-engined P-38 to the single-engined P-51 did cause some initial problems, and the lack of directional stability caused by the presence of a full fuselage tank took a lot of getting used to.

However, once their pilots became fully adjusted to their new mounts, they found that the P-51D possessed a marked edge in both speed and maneuverability over all Luftwaffe piston-engined fighters at altitudes above 20,000 feet. However, Luftwaffe pilots considered the Mustang to be rather vulnerable to cannon fire, particularly the liquid-cooled Merlin engine which could be put out of action by just one hit.

The Mustang was the only Allied fighter with sufficient range to accompany bombers on their "shuttle" missions in which landings were made in Russia after deep-penetration targets had been attacked from English bases.

The Mustangs also participated in low-altitude strikes on Luftwaffe airfields, a rather dangerous undertaking as these fields were very heavily defended by flak.

BEAR
http://www.avhistory.org