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October 1942. Inglewood, California. "Employees at North American Aviation, Incorporated, assembling the cowling on Allison motors for the P-51 'Mustang' fighter planes." 4x5 inch Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information. View full size.
The guy in front looked like Mark Ruffalo for a second.
Always with the WHITE OVERALLS. Back then in the olden days he probably wore wool slacks, a collared shirt and a tie underneath it all.
The Allison engine first appeared in the prototype version and in the A36 and P51-A model planes. A tell-tale sign of the Allison engine is the "trumpet exhaust tips." Later Merlin engines had round exhaust tips.
The Mustang started out with an Allison V-1710 engine then to a Packard built V-1650-7 which was a licence-built version of the Rolls-Royce Merlin 60 series two-stage supercharged engine.
There were 16,766 of them made and in 1945 they cost $50,985. I remember being buzzed by three Mustangs at Air Cadet Camp at Abbottsford, B.C., in the 1950s. What a sound.
New pic of the Galloping Ghost shows that the pilot's seat may have broke forcing the pilot back away from the controls at a critical point in the flight
Wow, safety wiring by hand. I had to learn to do that in high school, while the instructors got to use safety wire pliers, which are a nifty gadget. With safety wire pliers you start the twist, clamp the wire in the pliers, then pull a knob on the bottom, which threads a long screw out from the tool (like on an old-fashioned metal top), twisting the wire in a nice, uniform spiral. Sweet.
As for Jimmy Leeward in the Galloping Ghost last weekend in Reno, in the slo-mo video I saw, the elevator trim tab appears to come loose and break off.
Allisons were used in Mustangs before somebody had the idea of strapping a Rolls Royce Merlin engine onto a Mustang. The Allison-engined Mustangs were a bit of a disappointment, but with the Merlin they turned into the fighter we think about when we hear someone say Mustang.
The guy in the foreground is safety wiring bolts, spent a lot of hours doing that on fuel controls when I was much younger!
I see people blaming the pilot because of his age. Ridiculous. Also a shame to lose a vintage plane, and my all-time favorite WW2 fighter, the P-51 Mustang. Thanks for showing us where they began. Great shot.
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