Has anyone here managed to fly a real P-51 with fuel tanks fully loaded before?
The plane carries 92 US gallons in each of two fuel tanks in the wings plus an additional 85 US gallons in the rear fuselage behind the pilot. With that thing full, the P-51D's CoG goes out of whack and is VERY hard to handle.
P-51's had a HUGE wing loading; they were relatively heavy for their size and did not have much wing area to pull all that weight around unlike a Zero which easily does so.
Like mentioned, P-51's were flown high and fast, not low and slow, and they carried larger, heavier equipment (radio transmitters, receivers, rear fuel tanks) which most of current, restored P-51D's do not carry.
That said, I have something random to bring up: the P-51 "B" shown on the site is a Mustang Mk.Ia... it's got 4x 20 mm cannon in its wings and an Allison engine, identified by the top intake. P-51B's were Merlin-equipped planes with 4x .50 cals. Has anyone else noticed this?
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