ROKAF F-51Ds
All photos via Wikimedia Commons
Posted on 02/15/2016 4:04:56 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
ROKAF F-51Ds
All photos via Wikimedia Commons
Unfortunately the P-51 suffered greatly from ground fire in Korea due to its liquid cooled engine.
The Corsair managed far better, and the USAF would have been better served by retaining the P-47s.
Even back then the USAF suffered from pointy nose syndrome. The P-51 was a better fighter, but by 1950 the days of it being used as a fighter were over.
Corsairs and Skyraiders even saw action in Vietnam; quite a feat.
Before jet-powered aircraft were available, the Mustang had proven itself one of the most formidable aircraft in the world, excelling even the best Germany had to offer at the time.
One of the members of my high school graduating class, Richard James, went on to become a reasonable successful road construction contracting engineer, and as a hobby, took up the restoration of a Mustang. It had been a former ANG plane, that had never actually seen combat, so the airframe was in really good condition, but the other components had became really ruined. Dick had obtained a civil pilot rating, and he really wanted to fly the craft, so he had a restoration job done on it. When the cost hit $750,000, he said, don’t show me the bills any more, just keep the job going, we will settle up later. The craft was returned to him, fully functioning except for the dummy guns and dummy bomb racks. Dick took it to several air shows, and at the Oshkosh exhibition in 2005, he was flying formation with three other restored Mustangs. They rose from the field, took a pass, and a wide swing over the countryside, and - three came back. Somewhere out there, it may have been a momentary lapse of judgment, it may have been a component failure, it may have been almost anything, but that Mustang impacted the ground at 400 mph.
The Mustang was a gallant machine, but it could turn into a bitch kitty on a moment’s notice.
While a fine engine, the layout of the Merlin pretty much ensured that a hit from virtually any angle would take out at least two cylinders. With a radial engine like the Corsair or P-47, it would take a very lucky shot to hit more than one.
There was a wild looking aircraft. Like the love child of a P-51 and P-38.
And those big radials could run for 20 min, even with cylinders knocked completely out of them.
The Corsair managed far better, and the USAF would have been better served by retaining the P-47s.
Even back then the USAF suffered from pointy nose syndrome. The P-51 was a better fighter, but by 1950 the days of it being used as a fighter were over.
WWII experience had already demonstrated the Mustang's problems as an "attack" aircraft, but the post-WWII air corps and the then-new USAF wanted radial engined fighters gone, and by 1950 I think only some east coast Reserve or Guard units still had any, so the Mustang ended up in Korea by virtue of availability.
(As did the F-81 Twin Mustangs which were night fighters that also ended up doing close air support. The first USAF air-to-air "kill" fell to an F-82, and the few Twin Mustangs available for deployment were were rode hard and put up wet.)
Some years ago I had the privilege of speaking with a retired USAF pilot who had flown an F-51 in Korea, and he informed me that, at the time, the prospect of flying the Mustang as a ground support aircraft was not exactly pleasant. A lot of the old heads with WWII experience would have preferred a Jug, but that wasn't in the cards.
Mr. niteowl77
The “fragile” P-51 stories are a bit of an exaggeration. The real weak point was the coolant system.
In WWII, my dad was the chief maintenance officer for two squadrons of P-51 B’s, C’s and D’s in India and Burma. They were used primarily in close ground support and long raids against Japanese (”Jap”) ground targets. They had good records and suffered no extraordinary losses from ground fire. Admittedly, Japanese anti-aircraft defenses, while quite good, were not as intense as in Europe or in the Korean “unpleasantness.”
Pilots, with glycol streaming out of a damaged plane, knew they had a few minutes to find a place to put down or to climb to altitude for a “silk exit.” Sometimes pilots could nurse their Mustang home, or at least get back to friendly territory.
Dad served primarily with the 1st Squadron, 2nd Air Commandos.
Oldplayer
http://xp-82twinmustangproject.blogspot.com/
Rebuilding a Twin Mustang
I’ve always been intrigued by the F-82. For a year or so after I first saw a picture of it, I thought it was just another goofy WWII engineering experiment gone awry. Later, I was amazed . . . the things actually went into production and had a combat record, including (I believe) at least one air-to-air kill.
I have good imagination, but find it difficult to imagine what it must be like to sit isolated and so far from the center line of the plane, especially in aerobatic maneuvers.
Oldplayer
Thanks for the link. I’m always amazed by the dedication and craftsmanship involved in a restoration like that.
“USAF suffered from pointy nose syndrome”
Your right about that. Ground support for the army was a distant thought to the newly formed Air Force.
Navion.
I knew a P-51 pilot. He said that if you lost the engine you just bailed out. It was nearly impossible to land without power.
Yep, and 15 years later the USAF was operating the giant radial engined A-1 Skyraider, apparently having learned something in Korea.
Of course, I would guess that the decision to keep the P-51s and retire the P-47s, which was made prior to Korea, was almost totally about money. Post-war budgets were slashed, the P-51s were cheaper to maintain that the P-47s, and keeping a single type was even cheaper. I would guess that the P-51 was also viewed as a better transition training aircraft for pilots moving to jets.
The Navy turned out to be far more prepared, as they had no other options beyond the Corsairs, Bearcats, and Skyraiders. Hellcats were used as guided missiles in Korea, but I don’t think they flew combat missions. Bearcats were used for combat air patrols, but no ground attack that I know of.
The P-47s would have done fantastic work in Korea, but no one was planning on a bitter conventional ground war in the late 1940s.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.