Wohoo!! ONLY $4,500K!









Yea - WAY out of my league. Suddenly overhauling an E series engine and finding matching 88" blades looks easy... more my kinda crazy ....

Right???

If anyone's interested, we operate a 2 airplane T28 partnership in the Dallas area and we have two partners looking to sell.

www.TrojanPhlyers.com for more details about us.

While the T28 isn't a Mustang, it is an amazing plane and an absolute blast to fly. We do formation, aerobatics, airshows, etc. and the airshows help offset the costs.

Frankly, operating in a partnership like this, the T28 is some of the cheapest flying I do!

Robert

Video from the 1st post paint Flight a month ago
https://vimeo.com/252005801

Why the big secret over the paint job?

We just picked a point in time to unveil it to match with its 1st public outing, The Annual USAF Heritage Flight Training Conference.
It's been in the same scheme, but Blue, since 1980 or so.
In the 70s and 80s many color photos were published that showed the OD as Blue. 1940s color film could shift in hues. Many painted there P-51s blue as a result. Jim's dad did as well. He passed some 11 years ago now. Jim kept it the same as a tribute to his dad. Paint was last done in the early 90s and was showing its age.
So after some discussion we decided to keep the same scheme but make it a bit more accurate with flat paints, more correct colors and resizing the Invasion Stripes on the wings to the correct size.
The youngest son did many hours of research and drew up the changes. We did some in depth Maint at the same time.
We contacted a German Museum that had a P-51D wing section on display. It came from one of the earliest D models put in combat. It disappeared into clouds chasing a German Fighter and never was seen again. In 1969 a lake was drained and the wreckage was discovered. The wing ended up in the museum. We had blue prints for the how NAA laid out the markings as well as Air Corps Wartime specs but wanted to see if the actual markings matched up.
I contacted the staff by email and a while later they responded with measurements they made of the original markings.
The insignia was applied to the top of the left wing and the bottom of the right. It's the same side and position. Problem was it didn't match up with the specs or drawing.
It was inboard by about 6 inches and forward by a couple. Looking closely the circular portion edges were wavy.
1st off, the Invasion stripes added in early June before the Dday Invasion are supposed to be 6" inboard of the inboard edge of the insignia. 2nd it looked like someone had to hold a paint mask against the lower skin while paint was sprayed at the factory. From the wavy edges it seems that was a difficult task that day for whoever was doing it.
So that bit of research didn't pay off but I'm thankful they took the time to make the measurements for us.

The P-51D wing on display in Germany.
The pilot lost his life in this battle.
The early D Models, has the bubble canopy, featured a change to the MLG System. Earlier A, B/C models had a hook to secure each gear leg up.
The D re engineered the system to only use Hyd pressure to hold the gear leg up. The leading edge of the wing was moved forward slightly inboard from gear leg to cowling and a slightly larger inner gear door with its own up locks was introduced.
These caused some structural failures and they quickly introduced a new gear leg up lock modification for the P-51D.

Bald Eagle was bought in 1979 for around 150K with a spare engine in fly away condition.

Bald Eagle was bought in 1979 for around 150K with a spare engine in fly away condition.


$150,000 invested in the Dow in 1979 would be worth $15.3 million today.

Evidently not with the stocks I picked!

Yeah. But. 39 years of going about your day to day letting your 150AMU turn into 15.3M.
Or, 39 years of flying a P-51...WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE?

Some photos from the last couple days at the Training Conference at DMAFB.

https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/herita ... =feed_text

https://www.facebook.com/AirForceHerita ... =3&theater

And Jim is a standup and nice guy, too, one heck of a Mustang (and other watbirds) pilot, one I have had the pleasure to fly with/against in a couple of airshows some 20+ years now. Wish him the very best and safe flying!

But $150,000 in 1979 is equal to $512,000 today adjusted for inflation.



I'm glad we have choices, and that some people choose to spend their own money saving and restoring these historic airframes. We are all richer for it.

They arrived safely back at MQS this evening.
They used O2 and went high. Made 2 fuel stops between DMAFB and MQS, Amarillo and Marion ILL.
Bald Eagle did 22 hrs of flying over 1 week. Not bad for being born in 1944.