Posted on 02/15/2016 4:04:56 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
What was the rationale behind the F-82 Twin Mustang, as opposed to the more conventional version of the Mustang?
Google P-51 battle damage. There are quite a few pictures there. Remember, saying that the fragility of the P-51 is overstated, is not the same as saying that Thunderbolts weren’t tough as nails. They undoubtedly, were.
Oldplayer
r-barton,
The rationale for the F-82 was the long over-water combat missions in the Pacific. The B-29 escorts needed twin engines for safety and two pilots for the 10-hour missions. That single-pilot P-51’s made these missions from Iwo Jima is actually pretty impressive. Those young pilots were real men.
A prolonged bombing campaign was envisioned. Two nukes in August 1945 changed all that planning overnight.
Oldplayer
I’m also just an armchair aircraft and space enthusiast.
From what I understand, the Twin Mustang was designed as a long range bomber escort, to protect B-29 bombers on long range missions. The Twin Mustang had a range of 2,000 miles. One holds the record still for distance traveled un-refueled by piston powered aircraft. It took off, in 1947, from Hawaii and flew to New York in 14 hours, without refueling.
The Twin version was longer than the regular Mustang and had extra fuel tanks.
I should also add that 272 Twin Mustangs were made. It was also used as a bomber interceptor after World War 2 by SAC to repel Soviet bombers. It filled the gap for a few years until early jet fighters and interceptors came into use.
he rationale for the F-82 was the long over-water combat missions in the Pacific. ............................ One could nap while the other flew, so there wouldn’t be any pilot fatigue on the long range missions. Try driving a car for 10 hours straight without stopping and see how it affect you.
Also you had two engines. It could fly on one. An engine failure didn’t mean a loss of aircraft.
Wallace Wood was shot down flying a Corsair in some valley
in Korea. He grew up about 2 miles up the road from me.
He was 12 or 15 years older, but I knew him and his family.
Some type of bomber, may be B-36, flew from Texas, picked up
fighter escort along the way and circled his folks house.
A marker is in the small church cemetery his family attended.
While these aircraft did a commendable job conducting reconnaissance and ground attack and covering the evacuation of U.S. nationals from the war zone, there were not enough of them to go around. Additionally, the F-80Cs high fuel consumption, limited bomb pylon slots and the long flight transit from Japan to Korea constrained their loiter time over the battlefield to mere minutes.
And from your comment
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.
The USAF desk-pounders and Pentagonals demanded they keep the Allison engines (low fuel economy, less range, less payload, heavier weight, less power) for the twin-Mustang
rather than the British Merlins that could have been installed. Can't tell is it was Congressional pressure, or buy-it-here pressure, or corporate pressure, but like the A-10 debacle today, the Air Force utility suffered.
Again.
Great post. Thumbs-up to the Mustang and her pilots and crews!
Like the P/F-51s, the F-82s were obsolescent aircraft; unlike the P-51s, there were not many of them to begin with, spare parts were problematic and they were supposedly quite "interesting" to maintain. The pilots did the best with what they had, but a lot of them were none too happy with their situation.
Mr. niteowl77
Anyway, many years ago when there was a bunch of UFO talk in the news, he told us that unidentified objects would show up on the radar up on Yontan and he'd have to direct the F-82 pilots to the location, as the SCR-720 radars in the Twin Mustang "dong" weren't so useful until they were pretty close to something. The aircraft would eventually get close enough to see something (usually a light or a silver object), and then while a "scope dope" watched in amazement as the "blip" zipped off the radar screen at Yontan, the pilot would be radioing back something about "that @#$%! thing" taking off at some incredible speed in this-or-that direction. None of the family thought he was BS-ing.
Dad was a humble NCO and generally kept close to Kadena, so he only occasionally talked to any fighter pilots, but he thought most of them - especially the ones who had flown in WWII - were pretty good guys. Because of his timeframe at Okinawa, they were generally F-82 or F-80 pilots.
Mr. niteowl77
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