Hi folks
made an interesting discovery today (better late than never) .... but I'll come to that later
anyhow - I thought to share some P-51 knowledge with you:
as you know, two P-51-NA's were converted to XP-51B's - the USAAF serials being 41-37352 and 41-37421.
There exist photographs of both a/c while at NAA for testing purposes:
41-37352
this aircraft was taken from a RAF Lend-Lease Batch, assigned British serial FD450, US contract DA-140, British contract BSC282; repossessed and modified to XP-78, re-designated XP-51B, Model NA-101:
note the unusual style in the lettering of the serial - and the NAA logo on the tail shows that the photos were taken during tests at the factory.
41-37421
this aircraft was taken from a RAF Lend-Lease batch, assigned British serial FD519, US-contract DA-140, British contract BSC282; repossessed and modified to XP-78, re-designated XP-51B, Model NA-101:
two factory shots of '421 without serial applied and no cannons installed yet - also note the blank panel around the exhaust-stacks.
and a color shot from the Boeing archives:
below is another photo from later in the life of 41-37421 - note the US serial has been applied in the style of later production variants, i.e. on the tail, the bars have been added to the national insigna, and cannons are installed now (sorry for bad quality - found and copied it from the web - source is on the photo):
Here comes the interesting part:
This following photo shows 41-37352 when in use by the USAAF Training Command, when the a/c was based at Bartow AAF, FL, with code L82 on the nose - note the experimental panel around the exhaust-stacks, and cannons installed.
[I must have looked at this photo at least a dozen times before the significance and rarity hit me....]
it is also known that this aircraft suffered an accident on 13th April 1944 at Bartow AAF, FL, with pilot Lt. Douglas E. Booth at the controls while on a training mission from Drew Field, FL. Further details are not know so far, especially whether the a/c was w/o as a result of this mishap.
Comments ?
cordially
Martin
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