50 caliber machine guns mounted in the middle of its wing, as well as an assortment of bombs, rockets, or even a gun-pod that carried an additional eight .50 caliber machine guns. Aside from the range and speed, the F-82 could carry advanced radar and packed a punch with six. This was taken to the extreme in 1947, when a modified F-82 flew for over 5,000 miles non-stop, setting a distance record for propeller-powered fighter planes. Designed with range in mind, the F-82 could easily keep up with B-29s, able to fly for over 2,200 miles non-stop in its production form, thanks as well to the twin cockpit design that allowed one pilot to rest while the other took control. With a top speed of 475 MPH, the Twin-Mustang could fly faster than the normal Mustang, and do it for much longer. The finished product successfully fulfilled its purpose. The need for a new escort that could make the trip with ease, and pack a devastating punch against attacking interceptors was clearly needed. As a result, having fighter planes escort bombers to their targets was a necessity. With the battle pushing farther towards Japan, the distance these bombers had to fly from their bases became greater and greater, and as the target became mainland Japan itself, the flight time stretched to several hours each way. This was mostly inconsequential for long-range bombers like the B-29 but posed a challenge for fighter escorts trying to make the rapidly lengthening trip.Įxisting fighters like the P-51 and P-38 were very capable but struggled to pull off the long-range flight. As well, their pilots had a hard time physically and mentally enduring the hours of non-stop flying in the rough cockpit conditions they faced. But, these bombers were large and rather slow targets with little maneuverability making them vulnerable against attacking interceptors. Hope something here helps and makes sense.As America pushed back against Japan, bombers were a huge part of the fighting, devastating enemy forces and bases en masse. This may be splitting hairs on an OOOOO paint brush, but an aluminized lacquer finish just doesn't look the same as an unpainted aluminum finish, even in scale. (Leaving the main spar in yellow in a lacquered well was made more difficult by wartime shortages of both Magic Mask and Parafilm.) If aluminized lacquer WAS used, it would have been used to overspray the entire well. The object was to save money and time, so most corrosion control finishes were eliminated. I haven't seen evidence of that during WWII, but it could have happened.Īs for aluminum lacquer with a yellow spar, that's the one option that didn't happen and actually makes the least sense. If, for any reason, a second coat of primer was applied to the wheel well, it would have been green zinc chromate (by that time, the same as Interior Green). The problems had certainly been identified during B and C production, and fixes were ordered, I just can't find proof that these earlier models actually got the fix. I know for sure that this happened late in P-51D production. Since there were several grades of aluminum present, this led to corrosion issues on the Mustang, and at some point (I've not been able to pin down a date or place in production) wheel wells began to appear in overall yellow zinc chromate. There is a chance that some early Bs and Cs were delivered with unpainted spars, but I've never found more than a slight possibility of that having occurred.Īs part of the cost- and time-savings measures, all other non-cockpit interior areas were left in unpainted aluminum finish. The main wing spars were generally primed with a single coat of yellow zinc chromate to protect the alloy spar itself, to avoid dissimilar metal corrosion in the areas where the spar contacted the inner faces of the aluminum skin, and to reduce static electricity buildup on the aft face of the spar (where the main tanks were located). In 1942, before the Merlin-engined Mustangs entered production, North American was granted permission to build Mustangs without interior primers as a means of speeding production. The early Allison-engined Mustangs used the standard prewar corrosion control finishes for the wheel wells and struts: two coats of primer and one coat of aluminized lacquer. You've got several options here, but unpainted "natural" aluminum with a yellow zinc chromate main spar is the most common for P-51Bs and Cs.
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