A late friend of mine, who was dealing in airplanes in that era, bought a few of those. He sold them pretty quickly, though, to get a Twin Beech, I think-- something that was useful!
I love nicely restored warbirds for sure. But I'm also really interested in the history of these planes, post-WWII and before they were considered really valuable. This plane typifies that era. How cool is THAT?? https://vintageaviationnews.com/warbirds-news/n51t-one-of-the-last-civilian-painted-p-51-mustangs-for-sale.html Oh, a Mustang painted just like this one can be seen in the first few minutes of the Walter Matthau movie "A New Leaf", which also includes a nice Ferrari 275 GTB. Check it out!
I knew ace, Larry Blumer, who shot down 5 FW 190's in 15 minutes in what has been identified as the biggest dog fie in WW2 with over 55 airplanes involved. 45 FW190's were destroyed, JG6 was essentially wiped out, they lost 17 pilots (one was the Luftwaffe Ace), and never regained operational status.Blumer was captain of two P-38 squadrons and a pretty tough character.
Image Unavailable, Please Login I have been tracking P-51 values since 1973. After graduating in finance, I devised a business plan to obtain one. My research showed me that even with an 11 % loan, the value was rising so fast that I would at least be equal financially, which at the time was a great rate. My goal was to buy one by age 47, but things went so well that I was able to buy one at age 27. I paid $550,000 in 1989 for the 1984 reserve grand champion Warbird at Oshkosh. Worry Bird is likely worth 3.3 now 36 years later. Maybe not the best investment but we are only here once. Other considerations were the chance of losing my medical as age increases and the possibility to spend quality time with WW2 veterans. Among many other opportunities I was able to fly in a four ship with Chuck Yeager and Bud Anderson in 1995. My formation training was led by a WW2 pilot Hess Bomberger, I think it was 1993. The guys who waited were not able to experience this, as almost all of the WW2 pilots are gone.
I rechecked my figures and Blumer's outfit attacked 55 FW-190's. The dog fight had between 60 to 70 fighters shooting at each other. The Luft lost 45 airplanes , 18 damaged, and 18 pilots. Seven P-38's were lost.
He does last I heard. It is essentially his sons. Steve took himself out of the cockpit a number of years ago. It has been repainted in another scheme. https://www.mustangsmustangs.com/p-51/survivors/serial/44-72777 Several years ago I was with him at Reno and one of the other pilots came over with surplus sales documents for a number of P51s, some of which were there racing. Most were in hundreds of dollars. For sale too were crated rebuilt Merlins for just a couple hundred dollars.
Forgot to mention. Army sold off tons of them to civilians after WW2. Needed them for Korea and bought back many and remilitarized them. Then sold again later. You can sometimes tell them by having a fixed tail wheel. It was done on many civilian planes back in the day to reduce operation costs. Since speed and range was of little concern the remilitarized planes left the tail wheel as is.
Dad was flying them at Shaw Field when I was born. Big change from the P-47Ds he flew with the 86th FG during and after the war.
"Forgot to mention. Army sold off tons of them to civilians after WW2." ***** Grok estimates that 7,900+ P-51s out of total production of 15,586 were still flyable at the end of the War. Then scale of US war production is still difficult to imagine; ex. about 97,000 military aircraft were produced in 1944
I wonder how many were brought back from various theaters vs how many were destroyed in place and how many were given to local governments in theater. Other war materials and equipment was destroyed in place on a massive scale. Much even before cessation of hostilities. My father followed the advance across the Pacific from island to island destroying everything left behind. It was not junk. At one island they tied all the PT boats together and torched them.
Could have used a lot of it in Korea, but not PT boats. All the P-47s were gone by then, and the P-51 was not nearly as suitable for ground attack. The R2800 was a lot tougher than a Merlin V12.
And a P47 could nearly carry a P51. Probably the only plane available in numbers needed. Cavalier converted them to civilian use then was hired to buy them back and remilitarize them. I think they were the ones who did fixed tailwheel conversions. Corsairs existed in large numbers too but we sold a bunch of them to France.
I grew up where CAF was originally located. They bought planes/remains from South and Central American militaries.
