By Sam McGowan
If a single airplane has captured the public imagination more than any other, it is undoubtedly the North American P-51 Mustang fighter. In the minds of many, including the young fighter pilots who flew it during the final year of combat in Europe, it was the P-51 that allowed the Allies to attain complete air superiority over Europe.
Many of the accolades bestowed upon the Mustang are not quite in tune with the facts, however. The airplane truly did develop into an outstanding fighter—but it did not start out that way. Oddly enough, the design of the Mustang came about completely by accident and was more the result of corporate pride than military necessity. Its subsequent development also was more accidental than by design. The U.S. Army never even wanted the airplane, and the British were not happy with it when they got theirs.
North America Makes Their Own Fighter
Before America entered the war, the British Purchasing Commission placed orders for a variety of American-produced military aircraft, including Curtiss fighters powered by Allison engines, which had been designated as the P-40 Tomahawk by the U.S. Army Air Corps. Curtiss lacked the facilities to meet the British orders and made an offer to North American Aircraft to have them manufacture some planes under license. North American’s president, West Virginian James S. “Dutch” Kindelberger, was not happy with the offer. He proposed instead that his company produce an entirely new fighter that would be built around the same Allison V-1710 engine that powered the P-40. Kindelberger believed his company could produce an aerodynamically superior airplane that could utilize new mass production methods that were just coming into use in the American aircraft industry.
NO CREDIT CARD NEEDED
Read this article now for Free!
Enter your email address and a password to finish reading this article now.
— OR —
Subscribe Now!
Subscribe now to All Access Digital for only $3.99 a month and finish reading this article. Unlimited Website Access, Thousands of Searchable Articles, Warfare Newsletter, and more.
The sole reason there were more P-47 kills is p-47 squadrons arrived in February 1943 and the Mustangs didn’t arrive until February 1944. If you break it down into kills per sortie the Mustang is far superior. If you look at ” big week ” in February 1944 you can see how few Mustangs were available. On February 21st 1944 we put 542 B-47 and only 68 Mustangs. Those P-47s claimed 19 air-to-air victories and the Mustangs claimed 14 which is a far superior number per airplane. February 25th 687 B-47 flew claiming 14 and only 149 Mustangs flew claiming 12. Again a far superior ratio. From that point until the end of the war all or almost all new fighter squadrons were equipped with the P-51D. The only P-47s arriving after that point we’re replacement aircraft if the dwindling number of P-47 Squadron as more and more of them converted to the Mustangs.
The P-47 was a fearsome weapon but the P-51 B Mustangs were clearly Superior in air-to-air combat. They had far more victories per sortie band The Jugs.
The Alison V-1710 engine in the first Mustangs was not “normally aspirated”, all production V-17129’s had a single stage gear driven centrifugal flow turbo supercharger mounted on the rear of the engine bloc, originally purposed as the second stage for the expected installation of the General Electric EXHAUST driven turbo -supercharger (now commonly known as aTURBOCHARGER).
The Rolls -Royce Merlin’s turbosupercharger was also gear driven, two speed single stage , in the early models, and then two speed two staged, in the latest ones, as installed in the later Mustangs, Spitfires and Mosquitos. The photo recon Spitfires and Mosquitos with these engines were so capable at extremely high altitudes that they were the first production WW 2 aircraft to be built with pressurized cockpits, even before the B-29.
The high performance of the Packard/ Merlin V-1690 engine, and the superior aerodynamics and fuel capacity of the Mustang airframe, enabled it to match or exceed the capabilities of the Thunderbolt and the Corsair with a much smaller engine, much lower fuel consumption, and lower unit cost…