P-51 C Thunderbird | Oshkosh 2023 Livestream | Record Setting Aircraft
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- čas přidán 25. 07. 2023
- P-51 C Thunderbird | Oshkosh 2023 Livestream.
A ten-year-old boy paints a picture of a P-51 Mustang on his bedroom wall and dreams that he is in the cockpit, swooping through a cathedral of clouds at 400mph. Everyone intrigued with warbirds likely shared this same fantasy at some point during childhood, but for most, flying a Mustang will always elude us. But this story concerns more than wistful aspirations, it is about how that same 10-year-old boy made his dream a reality. Looking up at his wall, a young Warren Pietsch vowed that someday he would own and fly a P-51… but he couldn’t do it alone.
Warren’s father, Al Pietsch, owned Pietsch Flying Service in Minot, North Dakota, and Warren was fortunate to grow up in the family aviation business. In the 1990s Warren took ownership of the company and renamed it Pietsch Aircraft Restoration & Repair, Inc. which would eventually become Minot Aero Center. Warren’s father, his mother Eleanor, and brothers Gary and Kent were all pilots and supported Warren’s flying career early on. Many others were also encouraging: Gary Johnson, a mechanic and pilot who began working for Warren’s dad in 1964 and now works for Warren; Don Larson, chairman of the Dakota Territory Air Museum; close friends Brian Sturm, Jay Blessum, and many others, played roles in Warren’s aviation story.
Over the years, as his experience and pilot qualifications expanded, Warren had the chance to fly warbirds, like the Mustang, with the Dakota Territory Air Museum and Texas Flying Legends. These opportunities arose because people in the warbird industry like Casey Odegaard, Bernie Vasquez, Doug Rozendaal, Dusty Dowd, and Forest Lovely all provided friendship, knowledge, encouragement, and/or training. Warren couldn’t have ventured down this path with Thunderbird without fellow dreamers like Gerry Beck and Bob Odegaard - it takes an industry to bring these aircraft back to life.
In 1999, Warren purchased what he believed to be a damaged P-51A in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. It was only later that he discovered that what he’d actually acquired were the mortal remains of Thunderbird, the iconic blue P-51C which Jimmy Stewart once flew in the Bendix Air Races just after WWII. This discovery, and the incredible history of this specific Mustang, began Warren’s journey to restore Thunderbird as a tribute to its legendary owners. Jimmy Stewart, Joe DeBona, Jackie Cochran, and Jim Cook. Thunderbird is truly a people’s airplane because of the many folks involved with the dream since the beginning, and those tasked with breathing life into the project.
Hollywood star (and US Air Force Reserve Colonel) James Stewart, posing with the winning P-51 Mustang called 'Thunderbird' at the 1949 Bendix Air Race. Stewart was the aircraft's co-owner at the time. The transcontinental point-to-point race was held from 1931 until 1962.
Higher Resolution Image: tinyurl.com/5n6jc6cx
Thunderbird was a much modified P-51C but has no known U.S. Army Air Force serial number. The aircraft was built with parts from three different airframes. Leland and Martha Cameron bought these post-war surplus parts to build and modify Thunderbird through their business, Allied Aircraft of Chicago, Illinois.
General characteristics
Crew: 1
Length: 32 ft 3 in (9.83 m)
Wingspan: 37 ft 0 in (11.28 m)
Height: 13 ft 4.5 in (4.077 m) tail wheel on ground, vertical propeller blade
Wing area: 235 sq ft (21.8 m2)
Aspect ratio: 5.83
Airfoil: NAA/NACA 45-100
Empty weight: 7,635 lb (3,463 kg)
Gross weight: 9,200 lb (4,173 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 12,100 lb (5,488 kg) 5,490
Fuel capacity: 269 US gal (224 imp gal; 1,020 L)
Zero-lift drag coefficient: 0.0163
Drag area: 3.80 sqft (0.35 m²)
Powerplant: 1 × Packard (Rolls-Royce) V-1650-7 Merlin 12-cylinder liquid-cooled engine, 1,490 hp (1,110 kW) at 3,000 rpm; 1,720 hp (1,280 kW) at WEP
Propellers: 4-bladed Hamilton Standard constant-speed, variable-pitch, 11 ft 2 in (3.40 m) diameter
Performance
Maximum speed: 440 mph (710 km/h, 383 kn)
Cruise speed: 362 mph (583 km/h, 315 kn)
Stall speed: 100 mph (160 km/h, 87 kn)
Range: 1,650 mi (2,660 km, 1,434 nmi) with external tanks
Service ceiling: 41,900 ft (12,800 m)
Rate of climb: 3,200 ft/min (16 m/s)
Lift-to-drag: 14.6
Wing loading: 39 lb/sq ft (190 kg/m2)
Power/mass: 0.162 / 0.187 hp/lb (0.266 / 0.307 kW/kg) (without/with WEP)
Recommended Mach limit 0.8
Armament
Guns: 6 × .50 caliber (12.7mm) AN/M2 Browning machine guns with 1,840 total rounds (380 rounds for each on the inboard pair and 270 rounds for each of the outer two pair)
Rockets: 6 or 10 × 5.0 in (127 mm) T64 HVAR rockets (P-51D-25, P-51K-10 on)
Bombs: 1 × 100 lb (45 kg) or 250 lb (110 kg) bomb or 500 lb (230 kg) bomb on hardpoint under each wing
#p51mustang #Aircraft #oshkosh - Věda a technologie
Takeaway from this: it's not really Thunderbird. It's a reasonable facsimile with a stack of documentation/ paperwork. Slapping a -D wing on it is a deal breaker. Reminds me of the George Washington "axe that cut the cherry tree down" story. The handle was was replaced due to cracks, and the head was replaced, but other than that, it's GW's axe!
So glad to see this plane refurbished and brought back to life.... thank you!!
The irony is it's painted like a Blue Angel.
Glad I’m not the only one who noticed that😅
I had seen it at last year of Reno Races , what a beautiful restoration Bernie was the pilot that weekend.
6700 lbs? Man, that is light! Explains the "D" model fillet at the base of the vertical. Restored as the racer that it is. I would love to see them get a Q time at Reno.
Yes, the perfect ending for RAC. 2023
It's not a P-51D fillet, it is a P-51B/C dorsal fillet (a different design, due to the different design/countours of the fuselage). A technical order was issued in the summer of 1944 for both the P-51B/C and early P-51D to install a dorsal fin fillet, supplied as kits (and the last 400 P-51Cs manufactured at the Dallas factory came factory-new with the dorsal fillets already installed). All of the P-51B/C's that remained in service from the fall of 1944 onward had the dorsal fin fillet installed. Since 'Thunderbird' originally had the fillet in 1948/49, its been added on this reconstruction.
Hello Connie and Ed. Good to see both if you. Miss seeing y'all. Enjoying retirement. Ever back in ICT im a docent at Kansas Aviation Museum, stop and say hi. Randy Smith
I understand the D was a Tic slower than the earlier C due to the design which restricted rear view ???
That’s my Dad front and center!!
I think they chopped the one my grandfather flew in Korea for the Marines.
The wings are from a D model i guess, the leading edge at the wing root has more sweep than on the B/C models.
Yes, D-model wing and firewall-forward - those assemblies had already been completed for another project that had been under restoration in France, and when acquired were able to vastly speed-up the 'Thunderbird' project to completion.
@@johnterrell1103 Thanks for the data. After posting my comment i began to have doubts about what i just had written but i guess i have a keen eye after all. 😅
Cheers!
😁👍
have ya'll found the p51c with DING HOW on the side of it?
Ding Hao
Why hasn’t Warren, the owner, flown Thunderbird ?
Why doesn't this video have subtitles for the deaf???
This was a livestream, therefore no subtitles. Probably CZcams will automatically generate them in time
CZcams has it up now; click on the subtitles
Wow that's amazing 4.5 hours transcontinental flight averaging 561mph omgoodness at what altitude did he achieve that speed.
A sorry video
Sorry to tell you guys, but the Mobil Flying Horse is drawn and painted completely WRONG, how could you make a blunder like that, google the emblem and compare it with what you had painted, your version looks like a little kid did it, not a professional.
It's not supposed to be an exact copy of the Mobil logo. It is meant to be an exact copy of the way it was painted on the aircraft in 1949: 2.bp.blogspot.com/-WGUq2H_V2VE/V8-pWDRn7DI/AAAAAAAEZEw/I4F1dkTQgz4azEW8-kelLK8DlW_jXZslwCLcB/s1600/yiuki.JPG