Page 7 - July 2015 Volume 19 Number 8

Paul Bowen PhotoIgive my wife Gisela a lot of credit knots at 25,000 feet and, even withwhen it comes to embracingmid-life dalliances. She enthusiastically mastered SCUBA diving and braved heli-skiing, and she gamely crewed our J-105 sloop, even on the stormy days. Still, I didn’t anticipate that we would find ourselves training together at Stallion 51’s facility in Kissimmee, FL (KISM). Yet, there we were, suited up and ready to go, the iconic World War II vintage P-51 Mustang beckoning.The P-51 Mustang is a big, powerful airplane. Later variants had MGTOWs of nearly 12,000 lbs, fully loaded with armament, fuel and externals. The Mustang is also high energy, to say the very least. The entry speed for aileron rolls is normally 210 knots and, for loops, a staggering 260. Cruise speed is 323full flaps (50 degrees), 110 knots is the short-final target ref speed, about the same as our CJ3 jet.The P-51 is also a systems airplane, with hydraulic gear and flaps, and an advanced cooling design that actually adds thrust (the scoop underneath that funnels air to the water and oil radiators also acts like a small ram-jet). If there’s an Achilles Heel to this airplane, it’s that very close attention must be paid to managing the coolant temperature. It nominally runs between 100-110C, automatically controlled by operating an exhaust door at the rear end of the scoop. Anything outside of that range is a problem. For this reason, the airplane wasn’t a particularly- effective low-level fighter; very vulnerable to ground fire, oneAUGUST 2015 TWIN & TURBINE • 5