You get the prize Ret! I saw one of these beautiful babies for real at the Confederate Air Force Museum in Midland, Texas ca. 1993 or so. Before walking up to it, I never knew such a thing existed.

If I remember correctly, the information I read at the time said what you said and it was used in the Korean War.

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I never before knew the twin mustang even existed beyond the concept prototype stage mind served in korea. One obvious benifit was if your opposite aircrew in the plane had picked eggs and beer the night before you did not care.

Must have hit the absolute limit of speed with propellors I would have thought. .I had seen pictures of it and considered it a strange concept at the time.

I flew free flight model planes back then so kept an eye on general aviation.Obvious not as well as I thought I did.

Surprisingly, much of the structure of the F-82 (Twin Mustang) was unique to that airframe.

Methinks the USAF took back the F-82 that CAF had possession of because they were afraid the CAF was planning to return it to flying status.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

I don't know anything about that R Leo. I just know that I stood next to one with my jaw hitting the floor. It was a beauty, but that doesn't mean it was in flying status.

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I had a visible Mustang too! It had working retractable gear. A retired AF pilot with Mustang flight time assembled it for me. He flew RC planes in his retirement.

Later I assembled for a neighbor a visible Ford 2.3 turbo. Not sure if that was male or female

Sixto
87 300D

I saw that particular F-82 go splat down in Harlingen back in the 1980s. During taxi, one of the main gears decided to take a nap, wiping out the odd (ie reverse rotation) prop. There apparently weren't any more to be had at the time and the ship went on static display with a set of fake fiberglass blades on that side.

I guess that CAF managed to find a replacement and was thinking about flying the thing again. USAF wasn't keen on that and took it back, despite the fact that CAF supposedly had clear paper on it. Interesting stuff.

Personally, I'm not hot on flying these warbirds. Sure they're magnificent but they are the last remaining examples. Simply too precious an artifact to fling through the sky IMHO.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

Time to build replicas. I think maybe they are building mustang replicas.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Maybe these guys - EasyRods.com - will build a kit to make a Mosquito out of a Piper Seneca

Sixto
87 300D

I totally understand and respect your sentiment about not flying them. I feel differently about this, much the same as I feel about cars. I would never have a car that I couldn't drive. It would be of no use to me. Same goes for airplanes.

There is an outfit in Florida where you can take your REALLY FAT checkbook and go train in a T6 and then fly a two place Mustang. After you're checked out in the back seat, you can then move to the front seat, but I don't know if they ever let you solo for any amount of money, but of course, if you HAD that much money, I guess at that point, you would go buy your own.

If I ever hit the lottery, within a few weeks I will be in that T6. Of course, since I don't buy lottery tickets, I suppose my chances aren't very good of this ever happening. Of course, even if I DID buy lottery tickets I don't think my chances would go up by much.

BTW, thanks for filling me in on the history of the CAF F82.

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Perhaps an old Mustang is like a Ferrari GTO. No matter how badly crashed one is it is never totalled as the rebuild cost is a fraction of the value.

So if you can afford to own one you can afford to race it.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I agree totally. In R. Leo's defense, however, I think he was talking about things totally irreplacable.

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Back on the F-82 - if I remember correctly, it had either six or eight 50 cal machine guns in that center section between the two fuselages. That must have made for an interesting fire control system, to be able to accurately aim and fire those guns from either cockpit situated off to the side.

P-38 and Mosquito OTOH made it relatively simple - just stick all the armament in the nose, point and shoot. That might be one reason why those two were particularly so deadly - unlike the single engine fighters with the guns mounted out in each wing, where the guns had to be bore-sighted for the fire from them to converge at a certain range - with the P-38 and Mosquito, you're talking a single concentrated stream of lead no matter the range.

About 20 or so years ago, I had paperback reprints of "Ships and Aircraft of the U.S." from back in the 30's. Contrary to the general layman's perception, the great majority of the war-winning aircraft we used - the P-38, F4U Corsair, P-47 Thunderbolt, Avenger torpedo bomber, etc - were already well under development by the late 30's. We were caught flat-footed by events, not by lack of planning, that outstripped the planned timeline for the buildup and modernization of our fleet and aircraft, that was already well underway.

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Mitchell Oates
Mooresville, NC
'87 300D 212K miles
'87 300D 151K miles - R.I.P. 12/08
'05 Jeep Liberty CRD 67K miles
Grumpy Old Diesel Owners Club

Yes, there were a lot of WWII warbirds that were designed prior to the war. Probably most of them designs, were at least started before the US involvement. I expect that the needs of our allies drove this.

Of course there just were very few actually in the air in numbers. I remember seeing an Army Air Corps recruiting film that was made about six months after Jimmy Stewart went in the Air Force. He was the host in the film and was saying that there would be a need for a certain number of pilots and crew and that there would be 100,000 more planes to fly very soon. I think it worked out to be a much higher number. It seems like I recall that once the wargoods makers reached their stride they were turning out about 50,000 aircraft per year.

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Aircraft and a whole lot more.

During the war, Saginaw Steering Gear tooled up to produce, under license, the .30cal tank mounted machine gun and several months later and ahead of schedule, in March 1941, the first machine gun ever made by an automobile firm was delivered to the military. Saginaw was contracted to have completed 280 weapons by March of 1942. In reality, Saginaw had already delivered more than 28,000 guns by that time.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

Yep, the irreplaceable artifacts. If you want to fly one, build a replica. It can and has been done.

Dad was a life member in the CAF and he and I made Homecoming AirSho practically every year in the late 70's to the mid 80s. At one point in my life, I'd actually witnessed more airplane crashes than automobile wrecks. Not all were fatal but all involved warbirds.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.