If It Ain't A Mustang It Ain't A Fighter

[Bill Greenwood]

In the forum on low passes, some P-51 fan wrote the above. The Mustang was a good fighter, at least it was after they put a Spitfire engine in it! Let's take a look at scores of aces in the different types. Top P-51 guy about 15 or 18. Multiply that by 20 to get Erich Hartman at 352 confirmed. Top Spitfire guy, either Johnnie Johnson at 38, all fighters, not fixed gear trainers or 200 mph bombers, or Pat Pattle at 40 depending on which records you use. One thing about those Mustangs is they have good pr agents. If anyone gets tired of and decides to discard a Mustang, I' d take t off their hands.

[Jack Cook]

Pattle flew Hurricanes!

[Dan K]

and Gladiators!!

[phil65]

It's Hartmann, Bil Grenwod.
Same as mine.

[Dan K]

An old friend (now gone west) who flew both Jug and Mustang in combat held to the following:

"When you're out of glycol, you're out of Mustang."

Anyone want to guess what mount he preferred?

Round rules (again).

[phil65]

P-47?

[Swiss Mustangs]

...but the Mustang usually had enough gas to get you home....

Martin

[retroaviation]

Waaay back when I worked at a fairly well known Warbird restoration shop, we worked on quite a few Mustangs. It never failed that we'd hear tourists coming through saying something like, "round engines are neat, but Mustangs sure sound good." Well one day, our boss walked by and casually replied, "yeah, they sure sound good leaving."

That may not be funny to you Mustang guys, but it sure cracked me up! I reckon you have to work on a few of those engines to reeeeeaaally understand why the documentaries you see on the Mustangs only talk to the pilots and not the mechanics during the War.

[Jack Cook]

Here's one guy who was glad he wasn't flying a P-51!

BTW I showed a A-1 pilot this photo and he said"h*ll, if that was a Skyraider that be normal!"

[Ontario-Warbird]

Wasn't going to feed this because poking fun at the Mustang can be a very touch subject to most Yanks When filming a historical meeting for Bob Swaddling were he talked about Spitfires ( majority of the people present were American ) he made the comment about putting the Merlin in the Mustang made a real fighter out of it, the crowd got real quiet with the odd BOO.

All the time talking with Jerry Billing about various aviation subjects the comparison of the Spitfire and P51 did come up. Jerry has probably the most hours that will ever be recorded in Spitfires and has numerous hours in P51 MK IV ( D model ). When I asked him what he felt was the difference he replied " If you want to drive a truck fly a Mustang, if you want a sports car fly a Spitfire " He said the MK IX Spit was defiantly the best defensive fighter developed but the Mustang had the range to go deep into enemy territory.
Personally I love them all and enjoy see them in the air.\

Cheers Dave C

[k5083]

I always felt that Martin Caidin's best book was The Fork-Tailed Devil in which he put forth the thesis that the P-38, not the P-51, should be considered the USAAF's best fighter of the war. And it wins in the looks and sound departments, as well.

Dave, did Jerry ever tally up his hours in Spits? He was extremely proficient but I doubt he is near the top in hours logged.

August

[John Beyl]

I won’t say one type is better than another because I love each of them, but judging the effectiveness of a fighter based solely on the combat records of the pilots who flew them is most certainly a flawed way to judge one fighter against another. We must compare apples to apples if we want to be fair and objective.

Consider the missions and their points of origin. Spitfire’s flying aerial defense missions over England could make 7 or 8 flights a day meeting the enemy each time. This allowed for tremendous victory numbers among their top pilots and more than respectable numbers for even those of just capable skills. Compare that to the P-51’s and P-47 that flew 6 to 10 hour bomber escort missions and may meet combatants once or twice per day. Their victory numbers were even further diluted by the formidable firepower of the escorted bombers very real ability to down enemy aircraft.

Consider the design parameters of each aircraft type. After your careful consideration, I pose the following questions to you, how effective would a Spitfire be on an 8 hour escort mission? How effective would a Mustang be on short hop boarder defense missions? How maneuverable is the Jug in a dogfight verses the Spit and Mustang? How much flak and anti-aircraft ground fire can a Spit or Mustang handle verses the Jug?

And what of the pilots? Does a 200 mission pilot who has met the enemy 175 times have an advantage over a 30 mission pilot who may have met the enemy only 15 or 20 times? I have my answers, let’s hear yours and compare notes.


John

[Ontario-Warbird]

Dave, did Jerry ever tally up his hours in Spits? He was extremely proficient but I doubt he is near the top in hours logged.

Who would you say has the most then??

With his 250+ wartime sorties, all the hours in TE308 and a few in NH188 and SL721 then add in flying MK923 from 1974 til 1996 I can't think of anyone else.

Jerry stopped logging hours flying at 17000 hours ( all aircraft, not just Spitfires ) and flew for another 17 years at airshows after that.

I know he does have 6 log books.

Cheers Dave C

[Mudge]

Of course, youse troops know that I lean heavily toward the "Fork-Tailed Devil". Having said that, when I was in this here now USAF (in my ute, in my ute), I worked for a Captian who had flown "Jugs" in WWII. Told me he'd rather have a P-47 than anything else the USAAF had. That his had gotten him home more than once "With damage that would have killed a Mustang or a Spitfire". (His words, not mine.) He also claimed he'd seen a flight of P-47's take down a 2 story house with one pass. I'd pay to see that.

Too bad there aren't any 2 seater P-47's around. I'd love to ride in one.
Too bad there aren't any 2 seater Spitfires around that I could get a ride in.
(Just funnin', Bill, Just funnin'. I know I'm too big.)
Lets' nobody mention P-38's. That's kind of a tender subject

Mudge the large

[Randy Haskin]

Jack, what's wrong in that Jug picture? That looks like standard round-engine externally-lubricated cleanliness to me. The pilot's simply wondering why the belly is still so clean.

I haven't flown any of them, but figuring out the "best" fighter of a particular era is just about as subjective as finding the hottest girl at a bar. Everyone's got their favorite hair color, some are a$$ men, some are boob men, long hair, short hair, petite, amazon, rail thin or buxom...what's smokin' hot for one guy may be off the radar for another.

Hell, go into the Check Six bar at Nellis AFB during a Red Flag, ring the bell, and ask the crowd what the best fighter in the current inventory is -- you'll probably get just as many varied answers -- along with a bar fight, several broken bones, a couple chairs through windows, and God only knows what other debauchery in the post-questioning melee.

Me? I'm a Mustang man. Of course, I also like a little Corsair, Spit, and Jug on the side (especially when the Mustang's not looking).