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Excalibur III P-51C Tamiya 1:48


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I took some new pics of old kits the past week and will post more of them the coming days.

 

This is "Excalibur III" previously owned by Paul Mantz (he won the '46 and '47 Bendix with this plane), which was flown by Capt. Charles F. Blair from Norway across the North Pole to Alaska in a record-setting 10.5 hours. I read somewhere that he dropped a letter to Santa for his son (?) over the North Pole :-)

Another record flight was done later from NY to London.

Excalibur III was a P-51C with wet wing conversion (by Mantz).

 

The kit is Tamiya, with Hasegawa prop and DIY decals. One glich is the inner u/c doors which should be up. Maybe I will correct this now. Easy enough.

 

Excalibur01_zpssm2xctvt.jpg

 

Excalibur02_zpswbsaqrtj.jpg

 

Excalibur03_zpsgwo0fnax.jpg

 

Excalibur04_zpsdycug8vm.jpg

 

Excalibur05_zpsqmeerxyq.jpg

 

Excalibur06_zps44tz1mzc.jpg

 

Here is some more background of the real Excalibur III:

https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/29-may-1951/

 

René

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I love these ex military aircraft in civil colours. Beautifully built. With regards to the inner undercarriage doors, with the engine running they were normally closed. On retraction they opened to allow the gear to retract then closed. when the engine was shut down, hydraulic pressure would usually bleed off allowing then to slowly open under gravity. To relive stress on the system, there was a "Tee" handle in the cockpit to depressurise the hydraulics so the doors and sometimes the flaps were normally open when parked. An Aussie civil Mustang (VH-BOB) was damaged in a wheels up landing having had a hinge bracket on an inner door failed on take off, interrupting the whole process so as to not allow complete extension or retraction of the landing gear.

 

  Well Done,   Trev.

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Thanks Trev. I basicaly know of the hydraulic system of the P-51, but seem to remember that the B/C versions had a different system to the D. On the D the inner doors and the flaps drop by their own weight once the engine shuts down and the hydraulic pressure vanishes. But on the B/C the inner doors do not drop automatically. I would have to look it up and maybe I am mistaken, but this is what I had in my memory and a quick search revealed several photos of parked P-51 high backs with the inner doors up. No proof though.

René

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It just go's to show you that it doesn't pay to give an opinion until all the facts are known. I hadn't considered that the B and C models may be different to the system installed in the D and CAC built examples and wrongly assumed that they were the same.

As they say your never too old to learn something.

 

  All the best<  Trev.

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  • 1 month later...

I remember reading Capt. Blair's book before I reached my teens.  The accounts of record flights in the Mustang and a transfer-Atlantic deployment in F-84Fs that nearly came to grief because one of the jets' AAR receptacles wouldn't play at the appointed time and place were compelling reading.  Thank you for bringing back the memories (wish I could remember the title of the book).

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Very nice job on this Mustang,

and now ?? Dago red will be the next one ??

Or Dreadnought, that's an idea... No ?

Congratulations, nicely done.

Sincerely.

Corsaircorp.

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Thanks guys! Just returned from a few days off. Next one will be hopefully September Fury. But I will have to redo the canopy master another time - the shape is still not OK. I had not expected that catching the canopy shape would be so difficult.

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Hi Caerbannog,

 

Very nice work and a very pretty model!  Regarding the inner landing gear doors, like the D's, the B and C Mustang's doors will also generally bleed down and drop open.  This was common on the Merlin powered Mustangs.  The gear doors opened and closed with the gear cycling on Allison engine variants, so on those Mustangs the doors were normally up when the aircraft was parked.

 

HTH, Jim

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The great thing about the Merlin powered mustangs is that you can pose the gear doors and flaps pretty much any way you want. Up, down or in between, you can find photos of any combination, so nothing is "wrong"

 

Allison engined Mustangs, OTOH, seem to always have had the flaps and gear doors retracted while parked.
 

qp-b_zps163eit7y.jpg

 

P_51_BEING_SERVICED_2_zpsqp7o660i.jpg

 

gentile_zpspueso7ah.jpg

 

DINGHAO_zpsmxqjwozr.jpg

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Very nice job.  There was an article in an old Flying magazine written by Blair about the flight that was very interesting and I think he made some mention of the letter.  I used the Accurate Miniatures C kit to do an earlier incarnation of NX1202 in its racing days.

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