G'day Mike,
An interesting question, and finally one from you which I can provide at least a bit of information on. The guys who restored this particular Mustang, and some of the owners from the Syndicate are mates of mine, and have had great access to it on a few occasions.
The aircraft is definitely a CA-18, and A68-110 is the correct serial. Just looked at the records, and found that this bird was listed for disposal as scrap metal at Tocumwal. However a relative few aircraft were saved from Tocumwal before they were scrapped. I'm not sure if '110 was saved as a complete aircraft, but somehow at least, it seems that major chunks of this aircraft found their way Stateside, and eventually into a restoration project. Such chunks included the original i.d. plate. Given that this is located on the port side of the cockpit in Mustangs, that's giving reasonable evidence that the fuselage is certainly from A68-110.
Without calling the guys and asking them, I can't say what aircraft the wings and tail cone, etc might have been from. My belief is that the majority of the structure is of CA-18 manufacture. But I could be wrong. Actually, just thinking about it, I seem to recall that a tail cone from another aircraft might have been used. Perhaps this would have been 44-84502, although you certainly wouldn't consider the tail cone as a 'centre section'.
Hope this might help you in some way. Any further queries, then please feel free to pm me, or just post on here again.
Cheers,
Matt
mrhenniger wrote:
I am trying to nail down the history of VH-MFT. Landings indicates VH-MFT is a CAC CA-18 Mk 21 with c/n 1435. This would then be A68-110, but this one was scrapped by RAAF in 1957.
Another source appears to indicate a centre section from P-51D-25-NT 44-84502 was used in the restoration.
What is up with this one? I am just interested to know what was used in the restoration for the major components and was was used for the basis of the ID even if it is a dataplate.
TIA
Mike
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