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You can certainly fly a Mustang at 105 mph with gear down and full flaps, and it handles ok. No, it is not a Zero nor a Spit MK V, but what else is?
From what Howard tells me about flying the Triplane, I think that may be more dangerous than any Mustang.
Yes, in theory, an airplane can be stalled at any speed if you load it up enough with g. But when you ask the stall speed of a plane, it is assumed to be power off, and either clean Vs, or gear and flaps down, Vso which is usually, not always, about 10 % lower.
The best Mustang landing I ever made was flying Crazy Horse with Doug in the back seat. I was not used to doing wheel landings, did not do them as my normal landing in any of the planes I regularly flew, Cub, SNJ, Spit, or Rose biplane. So Doug said to try one almost 3 point. We crossed the threshold at Bartow, about 5000 feet, at 95 with a touch of power, and were at 90 with power off just as I started to flare. We made a very good tail low almost stall landing and could have stopped easily about half way down if we wanted. Doug liked that one, but he said never any slower, so we used 95to100 as the approach speed at the runway end to do wheel landings.
At 95 the 51 feels like it has lost half the aileron authority and some of the rudder. There is enough elevator control to flare or to use forward stick after touchdown. To me, it just feels like a bigger airplane. The big tires seem to soak up little mistakes. Luckily, I never had to fight the plane or try to make a big recovery. My worst landing was trying to make my first wheel landing with Lee. I got to the touchdown point, and did not really flare to tail low, nor did I use forward stick enough. So I sat there in between as we did about 3 skips down the runway. Lee was very cool and unflustered, but I suggested that he change the plane name from Crazy Horse to Crazy Hops.
The idea that a Mustang cannot be flow safely below 120 is an exaggeration. If you have flaps down,power back, wings level, and if you do not get low and slow, and MOST OF ALL, DO NOT PULL Gs, then it is not just suddenly going to turn into a Mu2. If you are looking for the signs of a stall, like in practice, you can see them, mainly the controls getting soft and loosing the feel of response, especially the ailerons. This is perhaps 5 mph before the stall. If you lower the nose and/or add some power, (some, not 61 inches!) it continues to fly. There is no stall warning horn or light like civilian planes. Now if the pilot were to be preoccupied like in a mock dogfight or a hard pull on a low pass or landing break, you well could get a stall before you were aware. I do imagine the a 51 in wartime at max full load weight was a caution.
When I was first getting some 51 time, Jay Cullum, an experienced owner, told me that it was not difficult, just remember 120 mph and 2 gs. Thus, you don't want to pull up to 2 gs when turning base to final and not less than 120 mph there. As for acro, Art Vance flew my Spitfire once and we talked about the differences. He said for acro the 51 was basically not a good plane below 200 mph. But remember what it was designed for, long range ,high speed escort which it was without equal. If you want to fly around at 60 mph, get a Stearman or a Cub, or better yet get a Spit Mk V, and I'll even help you fly it, no charge. Me and about a zillion other guys.
I do see quite a few Mustang landings that seem to me to be too fast as if the pilot was still in slow cruise when he encountered the runway, and he depended on forward stick and big brakes to slow him down. I remember asking Lee about this and he said a Mustang landed at the proper speed does not need P63 type brakes.
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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK
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