Название: Building the P-51 Mustang
Автор: Andy Evans
Издательство: MA Publications
Серия: Model Aircraft Extra №4
ISBN: 1916100538
Год издания: 2019
Язык: English
Cтраниц: 84
Формат: True PDF
Размер: 26,6 MB
Marrying an American dive-bomber design and a British engine, the North American P-51 Mustang became one of the greatest fighters of World War II. The iconic P-51 was a World War II single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber that also saw service in the Korean War and other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in 1940 by North American Aviation (NAA) in response to a requirement of the British Purchasing Commission. The Purchasing Commission approached North American Aviation to build Curtiss P-40 fighters under license for the Royal Air Force (RAF). Rather than build an old design from another company, North American Aviation proposed the design and production of a more modern fighter. The prototype NA-73X airframe was rolled out on 9 September 1940, 102 days after the contract was signed, and first flew on 26 October. The Mustang was designed to use the Allison V-1710 engine, which had limited high-altitude performance in its earlier variants. The aircraft was first flown operationally by the RAF as a tactical-reconnaissance aircraft and fighter-bomber (Mustang Mk I). Replacing the Allison with a Rolls-Royce Merlin resulted in the P-51B/C (Mustang Mk III) model and transformed the aircraft’s performance at altitudes above 15,000ft, without sacrificing range, allowing it to compete with the Luftwaffe’s fighters. The definitive version, the P-51D, was powered by the Packard V-1650-7, a license-built version of the two-speed two-stage-supercharged Merlin 66 and was armed with six .50 calibre M2/AN Browning machine guns.