Once, I ruled the skies by velocicrapper

Photography • Aviation • posted on Mar 09, 2004

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Description

::: Part 26 of a series of Warbird Photos ::: -------- SPECIAL -------- On March 6th, 2004 I had the special honor of going up in a World War 2 North American SNJ Texan trainer over Chino, California (from the Planes of Fame Museum) and meet up with a North American P-51D Mustang (my favorite plane of all time) and take my first ever Air-To-Air photos!!! :) What a way to get a start into that. It was actually my first ever small plane right, and aside from a commercial plane to Oahu and back, my second ever time in a airplane! Wow was it amazing and so much fun. (I even got to fly the Texan for a little while!!) This aircraft is a North American P-51D Mustang named 'Spam Can'. The P-51 was an amazing airplane, it was originally designed as a british contract, and a prototype was built in an amazing 102 days! It wasn't until the slower Allison engines were replaced by the British Rolls Royce Merlin engines that the P-51 Mustang start to become what we know of today. And the US Army Air Force took notice of the A-36 Apache and early P-51 models. The D model, shown pictured here, was the most produced of the P-51 models. Some were used through Korea and even Vietnam as Napalm bombers. Camera is a digital Minolta Dimage 7hi (5 MP). This image has been shrunk down to 33% of the original full size. Manual Focus, custom White Balance, and custom contrast/exposure value settings to help in the harsh reflections from the shiney aluminum.

Comments (6)

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WiserAngel

9:33AM | Tue, 09 March 2004

This is such a great picture. My father sure would appreciate it. He's going off to England soon to fly in a WWII Spitfire.

Jay7347

9:42AM | Tue, 09 March 2004

Had the occasion during my days as a newspaper photographer to cover an airshow with a P-51. When it did a low level flyby of the field it was just plain thrilling. I can still remember the sound of the enigine, sweet and powerful, dare I say sexy. I'd put it right next to a B-1 flyover at an Air Force football game, (one that they got in trouble for because it was as low as the press box.) That one, I was running up to the stadium, late, cameras and lens from 24 to 600 flying everywhere when I heard a rumble that made the earth shake. I looked up as it pulled out above me, so deafeningly powerful that it froze me as if seeing the face of god. So close that I could taste the exhaust in my open mouth with my jaw dropped to the ground. But that P-51 engine sound I'd rank right next to the B-1 in serious coolness factor. Great image! -jay

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