My 12 year old self, got a ride in "Sugar Booger", now named "Pecos Bill", when she was rebuilt by Mr. Bill Hubbs from Pecos, Texas. I will always have vivid memories of that flight. I had to sit on the old radio behind the pilot. They tied me in with a rope. My nose bled. I got tunnel vision. I was almost deaf from the sounds of engine, airflow and yelling so I wouldn't pass out. God knows, I'd do it all again. Pecos to Ft. Stockton in 11 minutes. 1969. Thank you, so much, for posting this.
This brought back so many memories of EAA with my Dad! The fighters ( warbirds ) used to line up in front of the crowd before the big Sunday show, and tach up those Merlins for a few minutes, and the ground vibrated 100 yards away...There is no sound in aviation to compare to the Merlin V12 in a P51....Thanks for posting this!!!
THANK YOU so much for posting this! My father was given the honor of flying the last operating military P-51 from EAFB, CA to it's place of retirement at the Aeronautical Space Museum. There was news coverage & everything! He felt so honored to have been the pilot chosen to retire his favorite plane. He had the privilege of meeting Bob Hoover and I am sure they talked about what a great bird it was to fly. While working for EAFB, he would do flyovers over our home & showoff his favorite plane. You could hear him coming and that engine roaring, swooping down low, then rocking the wings as if he was waving at all of us standing in awe at the amazing pilot in the magnificent plane! After retiring his favorite plane, my dad also then retired. He said that, "It just wasn't the same anymore without "his" beloved airplane to fly". This was in about 1979-1980? (I will have to check my facts because dad is now flying in Heaven now). He had the poem "High Flight" read at his funeral. He was a WWII & Korean War veteran respectively. Rest In Peace Dad...you are missed beyond words.
+MrRockoutLoud You are very welcome! Just hearing those engines brought back great memories for me. You can find pictures & newspaper clippings on the web of my dad, etc. Thanks again! His name was Larry Kline, and he retired the last military P-51 to the Army Museum in Alabama.
Great video the P-51 is my favorite WWII era Pursuit aircraft. I had the honor of seeing the P-51 Mustang flown by the pilot call sign By Request of the great Tuskegee Airmen.
Saw something similar at Oshkosh. A bunch of P-51s lined up facing the audience then all started those magnificent Rolls-Royce engines at once. Later I walked past their parking area and got a great photo of the unpainted polished one against a setting Sun.
Beutiful video , my king of Air plane, the 51 Mustang, so pretty and the sound is great. I gues if there was something i never did get to do in life that I wanted to do it would be to fly in a P51 mustang,
I agree on the announcer. He sounds a little like the great Sandy Sanders, but I don't recall Sandy talking OVER the music of the V-12s like this guy. PUT A CORK IN IT!!!
Well put. We can get the sound of an over-zealous human voice Anytime, but the throb of 1600+ horses encased in these beauties will only be here...live...for a relatively short time.
@@daveart48202 Or even the 10s of loudspeakers strung up all along the crowdline. I even picked a spot they weren't directly facing, but still heard it loud enough
Definite bucket list item. I would LOVE to hear the roar of the thunder and FREEDOM of these war birds. Thank you for the video minus the announcer the next time?
Just imagine our guys at 24-27 years old flying these Mustangs across Europe escorting bombers on their way to bring hell below to the enemy during WW2.
14 planes at $3000/hr flight time each - I just watched an expensive show. Thank You it was awesome - the V12 engines sound amazing & better yet they were Made in the USA! Maybe President Trump will bring manufacturing back home.
Wikipedia shows 142 currently airworthy in the US, Pecos Bill and Baby Duck were both lost in crashes between the video and now so 144 at the time. 14/144 gives 9.72% of the US P-51 fleet for 2015
@@TomsPlanes Question: Do most retain the Merlin engine or are they commonly replaced with something easier to maintain and perhaps higher performance?
@@dansmusic5749 I believe all of them still have the Merlin. Not sure if any are modified, but it would make sense if they replaced some components with similar ones designed with modern materials or methods
@@dansmusic5749 Hey dumb ass !!!! What would that "Easier to maintain and higher performance engine be"????????? HuUUUUHHHH????? Gotta be the dumbest most stupid comment I have ever heard on You Tube !!!! WOW !!!!
@@kevinthomas2662 ALL merlin Mustangs had engines MADE IN AMERICA by PACKARD !!! Pehaps you were ignorant of that fact !!!!! NOT one British built engine was installed in a production Mustang !!! FACT !!!!
@@kevinthomas2662 YOU dumb ass Bastard do you know why RR contracted with Packard to build the Merlin ?????NO it was NOT for the Mustang !!! RR contracted Packard as an off shore shadow factory AWAY from the war zone !!! In 3 1/2 years Packard built 55,523 merlins of which THE BRITS received 37,137 of them !!!! 1/3 of all merlins built over the course of about 14 years by RR !!!! RR "claimed" the Merlin could NOT be built on an assembly line and could not be improved !!! PACKARD did both !!!! May have been a complicated, over engineered expensive to build but Packard did it !!! FACTS of history not British lies, hype or BULLSHIT from BUTT HURT embarassed Limeys that just cannot stomach the fact somebody else was capable of building your merlin, and 50 Billion dollars more lend lease just ton save your useless Limey asses in WW II !!!! Chew on that for awhile limey !!!
YUCK! Never paint a P-51 all yellow or with modern paint schemes or strips. You can never go wrong with the Black and Yellow or Red and White checkered nose and D-Day black and white stripes.
announcer in WW2: ALL PILOTS TO YOUR AIRCRAFT THIS IS NOT A DRILL REPEAT NOT A DRILL TROOPS IN CONTACT guy in lead plane: right boys, we have troops in contact with heavy german infantry, we have been tasked to tear those germans up and cover the boys on the ground, keep an eye on your ammo and fuel save enough for 40 minutes firing runs and enough to return home copy? *second pilot* copy *3rd pilot* copy
Greatest invention of the war was the Merlin engine. It made the Mustang what it was destined to become, and the Spitfire, Hurricane. Mosquito. Lancaster bomber. Halifax bomber.... And probably a few more I've forgotten. Bless Rolls Royce and Packard
@@wilburfinnigan2142 It would have been so easy to reply, "You've made a mistake there. The Merlin was designed pre WWII and was such a tremendous design that it was in continuous development throughout the war and beyond". But of course you can't because you can only insult people. Just a small note about punctuation. The exclamation mark is only used once.
@@PenzancePete The merlin was far from perfect. it was good but took a lot of development and the only version any better , and only at altitude above 20 ,000, was the late 1942 60 series that had had the 2 stage supercharger. Allison mustang when introduced was 30 MPH Faster than the then current spitfire Mk V. the Allison kicked the merlin 20's butt !!!
great video but holy crap can the guy on the mic just stop talking for 1 second? Who wants to know/cares about production statics and all that minutia when there's ~20,000 horsepower worth of Merlin engine to listen to.
Has to be a mishap on part of the organizing committee to hire an announcer from a circus somewhere, somehow, it just doesn't really comply with the engine roar, the reason affectionados are there in the first place, weird, organizer don't seem to know it's a law of nature, never, never ever speak from when engines start up to at least five minutes after, the latter being the solemn part in total silence
What a beautiful sight....... but the entire time I’m thinking how well a strip or two of duct tape over the incessanty babbling mouth of the announcer would have made the show so much more enjoyable.
