P-51 Mustang

D

Doug Rodrigues

Filing Flight Plan
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May 12, 2022
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DiverDoug
Does anyone know of availability of flights in a P-51 near the Reno, NV or San Francisco, CA or the San Diego, CA areas? I had a chance to go on a flight in Hollister, CA a long time ago but the weather was too poor to fly. It is still on my "Bucket List". Best, DiverDoug
 
Six Shooter is Chuck Hall’s P51. He and his wife own and run Chuck Hall Aviation at KRNM (Ramona). It’s a two seat airplane but I don’t think they provide flights to the public.
 
Doug Rodrigues said:
Does anyone know of availability of flights in a P-51 near the Reno, NV or San Francisco, CA or the San Diego, CA areas? I had a chance to go on a flight in Hollister, CA a long time ago but the weather was too poor to fly. It is still on my "Bucket List". Best, DiverDoug
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I could give you a ride in a Mustang but it would be the C510 rather than P51 variant... Not nearly as cool - I'd love to fly a P51 too!
 
Or, just plan to go to Stallion51 next time you’re in the Orlando area. I flew w them a few years back and checked off a major bucket list item.
 
On the subject of the P-51 ever wonder why that belly scoop did not add to the drag of the airframe? Some smart guy named Meredith understood how a careful design of the scoop and heat exchanger could actually add thrust to the aircraft with the expanding hot air. The “Meredith effect” is named after him and the thrust created is greater than the drag from the belly scoop. There were smart guys in early aircraft design that never got the recognition for significant achievements especially using pencils, paper and slide rules.
 
RonP said:
On the subject of the P-51 ever wonder why that belly scoop did not add to the drag of the airframe? Some smart guy named Meredith understood how a careful design of the scoop and heat exchanger could actually add thrust to the aircraft with the expanding hot air. The “Meredith effect” is named after him and the thrust created is greater than the drag from the belly scoop. There were smart guys in early aircraft design that never got the recognition for significant achievements especially using pencils, paper and slide rules.
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Here's an interesting Kitplanes article about the effect and it relates some testing the author did on their RV-6. https://www.kitplanes.com/the-meredith-effect-fact-or-fiction/
 
RonP said:
On the subject of the P-51 ever wonder why that belly scoop did not add to the drag of the airframe? Some smart guy named Meredith understood how a careful design of the scoop and heat exchanger could actually add thrust to the aircraft with the expanding hot air. The “Meredith effect” is named after him and the thrust created is greater than the drag from the belly scoop. There were smart guys in early aircraft design that never got the recognition for significant achievements especially using pencils, paper and slide rules.
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Thanks for writing this, I learned something new today.
 
Go to MCW on a third Thursday, do some sweet talking (may take several trips) and see where it gets you!
 
and while we're at it do you know why the Spitfire had an elliptical wing? It was so they could fit eight guns into it, that's all.
 
Silvaire said:
and while we're at it do you know why the Spitfire had an elliptical wing? It was so they could fit eight guns into it, that's all.
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The Hurricane had a conventional tapered wing, and it had eight .303s as well.

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
The Hurricane had a conventional tapered wing, and it had eight .303s as well.

Ron Wanttaja
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It was a bigger wing. They had a lot of problems trying to fit cannons on the Spitfire because the wing was so thin.
 
Silvaire said:
It was a bigger wing. They had a lot of problems trying to fit cannons on the Spitfire because the wing was so thin.
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That's all good, but I doubt the elliptical wing design was driven by the need to fit eight guns within. I'd have to know *why* an elliptical wing was the sole workable solution, for that wing area and desired thickness.

My belief is that it was based on aerodynamic efficiency, not internal volume. The Wikipedia entry for the man who designed the wing tends to support this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverley_Shenstone

Also, note the semi-elliptical design of the Supermarine S6B:
supermarine racer top view.jpg
No guns there....

Ron Wanttaja
 
According to the designer:

“The elliptical wing was decided upon quite early on. Aerodynamically it was the best for our purpose because the induced drag, that caused in producing lift, was lowest when this shape was used; the ellipse was an ideal shape, theoretically a perfection. There were other advantages, so far as we were concerned. To reduce drag we wanted the lowest possible wing thickness-to-chord ratio, consistent with the necessary strength. But near the root the wing had to be thick enough to accommodate the retracted undercarriage and the guns; so to achieve a good thickness-to-chord ratio we wanted the wing to have a wide chord near the root. A straight-tapered wing starts to reduce in chord from the moment it leaves the root; an elliptic wing, on the other hand, tapers only very slowly at first then progressively more rapidly towards the tip. Mitchell was an intensely practical man and he liked practical solutions to problems. I remember once discussing the wing shape with him and he commented: “I don’t give a b….. whether it’s elliptical or not, so long as it covers the guns!”
The ellipse was simply the shape which allowed us the thinnest possible wing with sufficient room inside to carry the necessary structure and things we wanted to cram in. And it looked nice.”​
 
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Yea, my dad was in the RAF and he had a bunch of books about the Spitfire. I remembered reading Mitchell's comment about the wing, that's probably where I got it from. In the end I suppose there were many reasons, there were 24 different Marks of the Spitfire built, it went through a lot of modifications over the war years.

What's really funny is that this thread is supposed to be about the P-51 ha,ha
 
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