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Old 06-14-2013, 07:42 AM
Air&Road Air&Road is offline
Posting since Jan 2000
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 7,166
Thanks for posting Hat. I really enjoyed it... however, I must admit I was a bit disappointed. I thought I was going to see some aerial gunnery.

The P51 is probably my favorite military aircraft too. I would love to get the chance to fly one. Problem is, even if I won that 500 Million lottery instead of Hat, it is a single seat, single control plane. A number of pilots died just trying to learn to fly one.

A WWII pilot friend of mine said that after basic flight and dual in an AT6, they handed them the manual for the P51. They told them to study the manual and go fly the plane. Several people died from his group doing just that.

For today's pilots, even some really high time pilots, even if they had the cash to fly one, what would keep them out of it, at least until they did some training, is the fact that the P51 is a tailwheel plane. There are lots of experienced pilots that could figure out how to handle it in the air without much trouble, if they could get it airborne without ground looping it first. The vast majority of my time is tailwheel, so they need to move me to the front of the line.

All that said, I sure would like to get the instruction and the chance.
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