P-51D 44-73435
Also, this serial number is not correct. I notice that a lot or directories and registers claim that Pioneer Aero Service got this airframe from Lefty Gardner. Not so! Pioneer bought 6 airframes from the Cavalier stash Gordon Plaskett stored at King City, all of these came without any paperwork. So, any list that notes a given Cavalier airframe so and so going to PAS is pure rubbish. With Cavalier's way of shuffling airframes and papers around, chances are none of the airframes PAS bought matched the planes still listed as being owned by Cavalier on the USCAR. They added one more airframe from Lefty, this was 44-73029 (remnants of the old data block still clearly etched in the metal) which the sharp- eyed of you will notice ought to be flying on the east coast (if Ids are to be trusted...
). PAS later managed to get the paperwork for 44-63507 from Lefty, and this was then applied to the TF project Paul Peters bought, and in which he later crashed fatally. As far as I can remember the airframe from Lefty wasn't even used for Peters TF, together with the set of paperwork he supplied (which wouldn't have matched in a perfect world anyway).
So Rob, as you can see there is actually no way to know the real ID for the ex- Cavalier Mustangs. I guess the correct way here is to label N513PA as '44-72934' with the note that its original ID is unknown. Just one more anecdote I find fascinating about this P-51 and its colors. The owners (WofGB) wanted it painted as Gentile's 'victory ship' but this was problematic, as no- one had a photo that showed the entire plane. The only one in circulation showed the front part of the fuselage with the rear being obscured by the wing. This meant that artistic license came into play. They added Gentile's original squadron codes, the serial # to be used on this particular D, and a blue rudder (repainted red when it arrived in the UK) to make it look good. Then later on Charles Osborn painted his N51VF in the very same colors, including the bogus serial # on the tail. In recent times there has been made available hand crafted models, and die- cast models painted all the same. I bet you, in 20 years time history will claim, that without a doubt, this is how Gentile's D model really looked. After all, it is all over the internet. And it can't be wrong!
But the fact still remain, we don't know what it really looked like...
Well troops, history lesson over. Now back to where you were...
T J
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