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North American P51 B CutawayClick for hires image - much higher res Parlez vous francais? |
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Huh- I never knew the early models had .50's mounted *beside* the engine;
I remember them being up top, ala a P-40.
Learn something every day.
That has to be the P51-A model then! Notice that it has a 12 cylinder Allison engine instead of the Merlin and a weird air intake on top. IIRC those were given away to the brits, and that probably explains the roundels on the wings too. It wasn't until they figured out to stuff a Merlin in the engine bay that the Mustang was born as we know it.
I was just going to say the same thing. The B was the first model for the Merlin. Before that the A and even before that the NA-78 export model both had Allison's and were considered low altitude attack aircraft.
Ooh somebodys busted…
Have never,ever,never, understood Allison's boneheaded
refusal to supercharge everything that came out the factory
door. I mean, being blown is good, right?
They had a supercharger for it. The USAF chose not to spend the money on the superchargers for it.
The USAAC, and later USAAF, wants things cheap and maintenance free/light. The supercharger if i recall meant lest time between engine overhauls, increased weight, increased complexity and above all else increased fuel consumption and thus shorter range…
Ironically, now a days, they want the most complex piece of ___ on the planet… =(
Poor, poor, XF-12, the only cool ship in the fleet.
I claim ignorance. I grabbed the picture because it had a pretty red airplane in it.
Oh we weren't saying you grabbed the wrong image. We are just being plane geeks.
The red plane is a P51B with the Merlin, the two cutaway pictures of P51A were just confusing… very cool though, you never hear a peep about that variant and I was completely unaware that they had stuffed the two extra .50 cals in the nose. Now it also makes sense why they dropped them, as the Merlin is obviously bigger and the air intake is relocated underneath the prop.