Recent content by TbirdsRGo

Great book, Bill! I just got it in the mail yesterday and have been reading it nonstop. You mentioned that in going from the Allison-powered P-51s to the P-51B the wing was moved slightly down and forward. Is there some discussion of the actual measurements in some other thread here? On page...

When do you expect this book to come out? Can't wait to see it! Regarding the two piece bubble canopy, I saw the join line in a number of photographs. I don't know anything about the manufacturing methods. I asked John Morgan about it and he confirmed that there was indeed a joint. The...

One thing that had me puzzled for a while is that while the firewall of the P-51H is clearly ahead of the wing, the firewalls of all other Mustangs intercept the wing. This is true even on the LW Mustangs, which didn't have the leading edge kink, so their leading edges were further back. So why...

My real interest in all this was originally just to build models of the XP-51G and J. Based on these comparisons, I do think the most straightforward way to build a XP-51G is to take the top of a P-51D fuselage and the bottom of a P-51H fuselage and glue them together. This is, of course...

The last step of the journey (ignoring the Twin Mustang, of course) is to go from the XP-51J to the P-51H. I do not have a good factory drawing of a P-51H. You would think those would be easier to come by. So I used the drawing from the 1/48 Modelsvit P-51H, which is excellent. I think it is a...

Although the XP-51J had more in common with the P-51H than any other model from the firewall back, the Allison engine installation made it a bit of an odd duck. The XP-51J general arrangement drawing shows some notable features: 1. the 2-stage Allison engine installation took up a bit more...

After the XP-51G, you need to proceed to the XP-51J. Even though it had a totally different engine installation, it is a necessary steppingstone to get to the P-51H. This is because they added an extra fuselage frame at the very end that moved the rudder hinge line further aft. They also...

I forgot to mention that the firewall of the early Mustangs (NA-73X thru P-51D/K) was more angled than the later Mustangs (F/G/J/H), which were more upright. The firewalls themselves were basically flat, but if you look closely at the LW Mustangs (F/G/J) from the outside, you will see that the...

Here's the XP-51G general arrangement drawing by itself. Key features to note are: 1. raised cockpit floor with the gas-fired Janitrol heater below the pilot's seat. Right above the main fuel tank. No wonder pilots were concerned about this! 2. the pilot seat was hydraulically raised/lowered...

I suppose it makes sense to go chronologically, so here's the comparison of the P-51D and XP-51G. I'm skipping the F model because I don't have a reliable drawing for it and it's pretty easy to point out the difference between the F and G models. What you can see here is: 1. The upper profile...

Justin, I finally got hold of the XP-51G inboard profile, as some call it. The drawing itself is labeled "general arrangement", so I would go with that. I used GIMP 2.0 to overlay the XP-51G and XP-51J drawings and the result was pretty much what I expected. They are basically the same from...

The 1/72 P-51H looks very nice! I didn't find many errors in the RS Models P-51H kit, so I'm curious what problems you ran into. Certainly the vertical tail is tilted back and needs to be made more vertical. The model looks a lot better with the canopy open as your pictures show. When I...

Here are the 1/48 scale Light Weight Mustangs that I have spent the last few months on. In the foreground is FR409, the RAF XP-51F, then a XP-51J, two examples of the first XP-51G, then the RAF FR410 XP-51G. Note that both XP-51Gs ended up with the early P-51H (short) tail and the 4-bladed...

Justin, I think the most expeditious way to build a 1/72 XP-51G would be to mash up the top of a P-51D with the bottom of a P-51H. I just finished building a gaggle of lightweight Mustangs in 1/48 scale and learned a lot in the process. I started looking into doing the same in 1/72 but frankly...

Yeah, texting is not the easiest form of communication! I learned something new about the Ju52, though. :) I caught Fifi at Chino a couple of years ago. Fortunately, it was parked in front of a chain-link fence so I had a great reference to the vertical. To get back to the original thread a...