P-51H

Recently I received some water type decals from an old kit. I don't know what the mfg. of the kit was, however, the USAF and S/N 464164 is on the decal. I have checked the Jetco P-51H kit as advised and found the S/N to be 464366 and ANG366. This is close but no banana! Do any of you guys or gals know of a kit with this S/N 454164? and for a P-51H. It has all of the stars and bars without the RED stripe through the white bars and a lot of the scale info for the plane such as: U.S. AIR FORCE P-51H / A.F. serial no. 54-646164 / service a/c with grade 98-120 fuel / external power / receptical 28 volts / no step / step / low pressure return filter valve / control access. I would like to know if anyone knows the kit these decals may have come from. I know someone out there is smart in this area. Is there another P-51H kit I don't know about? thanks for any help you can give. / Larry:)

Larry,
Total shot in the dark here. How bout the old Dumas kit? I'm kinda' sorta remembering that they did a Stang, full body, flapped stunt machine. Saw one of these fly with a Fox Three Five around 1977. First time I ever saw the Fox in what I now know to have been the classic 4-2-4 break engine run. Saw the kit for this one back in 1998 at a second hand plastic kit collectors store (Deans One Stop, Flushing, Michigan). He was asking big bucks for it I thought, 90 or 100 bills, if memory serves. Anybody got the old mag ads for Dumas? Their the boat guys right, but they did do some aircraft. Another light bulb going on here,..I've got one of the Dumas profile Corsair II Carrier kits. It carries some of the other kit pictures on the box. I'll check and report back.

Tony, As I make the Veco F-51 kit and have original plans from Veco and Dumas (They are different) neither kit shows the S/N of the plane. In fact, if you look real close at the box picture, there is a serial number on the model, however, you can't make it out. I've checked the original kit and found no decals by Veco and no S/N on the plans. Thanks for the help Tony. I guess I still need more. If you come up with anything else, please try my e-mail [email protected].

you might want to check the Sterling R/C kit that they made. I believe that it was an H model and might be those numbers. If someone has some of the model mags from the 60's you will probably find the adds for it

Thanks Dennis. I don't have that kit in my collection, so I'll have to wait to see if someone else has the info on the Sterling kit.

LAST EDITED ON Aug-16-03 AT 07:03 PM (CDT)
 
I keep thinking that there was a Top Flite P-51 during the molded CL kit era. Seems that it was bigger than the Jetco kit, if it existed, and I really am not sure. It's the CRS, again. There are also some small RC scale Mustangs, including House of Balsa and several RC Combat kit makers. HOB actually makes four P-51 kits, two 1/2a, one of which is profile, a .21 and a .40 size. Steve

There was, but it was a "D" model rather than the "H". The kit decals duplicated the WW-II "Sharpshooter", and it used the "superform" fuse shells that the P-40 and P-47 kits also used.
The H was a rather rare aircraft; only 555 were built and it was the only Mustang never to serve with a foreign airforce, although I think one was supplied to the British for evaluation.

The Sterling kit was indeed of the H model. Although intended for R/C, it could be built (like the P-63 kit) for C/L.
I'll have to go pull some of the old mags and look at the ads to see what the tail # is.

It could be a KENHI F51-H a Hi Johnson design, the photo on box show 464164 on tail.

after re reading your post it is the KENHI: A.F. SERIAL NO. 54-64164, service this aircraft with grade 98-120 fuel. If not available, T.O.162-3 will be consulted for emergency action suitable for aromatic fuels!

LAST EDITED ON Aug-16-03 AT 10:19 PM (CDT)
 
Thank you Mark! That's IT! Now I know what I have. If anyone out there has the Hi Johnson kit with a bad decal or damaged one, I have several of them in excellent condition. I'd like to have a Hi P-51 kit myself! Anyone selling? Thanks again Mark for the quick reply.

That may well be it. It's a rather scarce kit today...

Is it true that the "H" had straight wings??. MM

According to my history book on the P-51H They all had dihedral. Or are you talking models here?

>According to my history book on the P-51H They all had
>dihedral. Or are you talking models here?

I think he is talking about the wing planform shape here. The H eliminated the "crank" in the wing L.E. found on all earlier Mustang variants because of a revision in the landing gear mechanism. It also returned to the Allison engine for power. It was the fastest of all the (factory production) '51s too.

Hi John. My book shows the crank leading edge gone, however, the wing still sweeps from root to tip like the others. Again, my book says the H models were powered by Packard-built Merlin V-1650-9 engines with the emergency horsepower of 2,250 at 10,200 feet. It seems that each book has a different outlook on this great airplane. Also the H models were all built in Englewood, California. Another item brought over from the D model to the H was the bubble canopy.

I'll have to go read my Rolls Royce "Mustang" book again to see what this engine was equivalent to in the British scheme of things. The 100 series Merlins were indeed highly developed beasts, and put out amazing amounts of power, and were used on very few planes (the only one I can think of is the DH Hornet).

Not surprisingly, it was Rolls Royce who did the initial work of fitting the Merlin to the Mustang airframe (they called the prototype "Mustang X"), and the initial versions had the intercooler radiator under the chin, which made it look butt-ugly (though, surprisingly, almost as fast as later versions). It was interesting to read about the problems one runs into when one fits a new engine on an existing fighter. It wasn't all plain sailing. One of the comments made in the book was that jet engines were SO much easier to deal with, installation wise - no radiators, no having to deal with vibration, etc.

I found the last chapter of the book VERY interesting. Towards the end of the war, Rolls Royce was actually thinking of getting into the fighter business, and had a design team making plans and constructing mock-ups. The initial designs were all based on the existing Mustang wing, but they were thinking about different power plants, including the Griffon and the Crecy (and later, jets).

Interestingly enough, NONE of these proposed airplanes had the usual layout. On all of them, the pilot sat far forward on the nose, the engine behind him, and the wing under the engine. Power was transferred to the prop using a long extension shaft. In other words, the same layout as the much maligned Bell P-39. And if you think about it, this was the same layout used in the soon-to-follow jet fighters. In fact, the Crecy powered designs would have utilized engine exhaust to boost speed (something like 20% of the thrust was supposed to have come from the exhaust), and the more advanced designs using the Crecy would have had the exhaust coming out a tailpipe in the rear, making them look like jets.

So in all likelihood, a Griffon or Crecy powered "Mustang" would not have looked like a Mustang at all, but more like a P-39!

The H did indeed use the Merlin, it was the F-82 I was thinking of when I wrote that for some reason.
I have seen drawings of a (I THINK) Supermarine design proposal for the RAF: it had a pod and boom design. The engine assembly was in the center fuse nacelle driving a tractor prop, and the pilot's cockpit was in a pod located on the tailplane between the twin booms! Odd looking to say the least.

The P-82E, "Twin Mustangs" flew with the Allison 1710-143/145 putting out 2250hp at 3200rpm's. The XP-82 flew with the Packard 1650's in April of 1945. The 82A would have carried the Allison 1710-1195's rotating the same direction,..this aircraft was never built. The XP-51J was to be powered by a Allison 1710-195 but the engine program had trouble. Once ironed out though, this engine went on to power all P-82's after the E model. (As noted in Sq. Signal's "P-51 Mustang - In Action")

LAST EDITED ON Aug-17-03 AT 10:12 PM (CDT)
 
Larry,
I think he may be talking about the "cranked" wing root leading edge fillet which is almost a trade mark of the "D" models wing. Funny thing happened while on the way to this "wing" topic. I've been looking at the "B/C" models of the Mustang for a possible project build (which is only a dream at this point), but I noticed that these early Mustang Mk's have a much reduced wing root fillet on the leading edge. After falling in love with the Mustang since I can't remember when, it is only this past year that this detail has come to my attention. The "D" models wing root leading edge fillet pushes approx. 11" farther forward then the "B/C" models wing. The only diff between the "B" and "C" models is that they were built in different aircraft plants. North American could not produce the needed numbers of the "B" at there L.A. California plant so they were built at there plant in Dallas and given the "C" designation.
The "H" wing is almost straight at the wing root leading edge as compared to the "D". See below for more of the differences.

The taller vertical tail shape found on the H was a feature added to "D" model upgrade rebuilds done by Cavalier in the '60s...

...and speaking of Mustangs, I was out earlier today with my own design XP-51 (using a slightly smaller Mo'Best wing) lost it in the dreaded coffin corner!#@$%*..rats!
I always loved the prewar type markings and Mustangs, so model had to be built.
...its rebuildable, but my contest is the 24th!

Mark, you better get out the CA and get-a-trucken! Sorry to hear about the crash.

Yes, I was asking about the LE kink. Thanks for all of the neet info. I'll have to change my little 36" Mustang to an "H" model. Cox TD 09
MM

If you ever need a 33" or 48" Mustang, I make both in profile and the Veco model which is also 48".