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ORIGINAL: obvert

Another Cat.

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Cool pictures, all those fighters airborne at once must have been surreal.

I read the Blenheim was airworthy, crashed, and was painfully restored back to flyable condition. I believe it's the only flyable one in the world. That P-36C was restored at Chino, CA and had a chance to fly with the last flyable P-35 (actually AT-12, 2 seat variant) at the 2015 air show there before being shipped to the UK.

Berlin Express is a P-51C. The main difference between the B and C was where they were built, the Bs in California and the Cs in Texas. The early marks of both were identical, but the line in Texas started with the vents just behind the prop before switching over to P-51D production and the California plant started with the vents with D production. (The Army also started a different designation system between starting B/C and D production adding a two letter code for the factory to the end of the designation.) So the later P-51Cs were the only non-bubble canopy P-51s with the nose vents.

Sea Furys are pretty common in California. The only place in the US that still does air racing is at Reno, NV and there are a lot of retired air racers on the air show circuit in the western US.

It's been years since I've been to an air show. I used to work one in college and that was a lot of fun. I was on the duty to close the runway to regular traffic at the start of the airshow one year. We put a big X at the end of the runway (which was blown off by the prop wash from the first planes to take off). Just after was got the X down, 4 P-51s came and took off to start the show. They took off in pairs and the noise was both deafening and awesome at the same time. I was only a wing's length from two Merlins wide open.

Bill

ORIGINAL: fcooke

That's the one I was thinking of Warspite - thanks for clearing up my confusion. Still amazed the pilot survived that.

ORIGINAL: Lord_Calidor

Awesome pics, Obvert. Thanks!

What camera and lenses did you use?

ORIGINAL: wdolson

I read the Blenheim was airworthy, crashed, and was painfully restored back to flyable condition.

ORIGINAL: Orm

ORIGINAL: obvert

Another Cat.

Yet another awesome picture. [&o]

Would it be possible to post it in better quality so that I can make a background picture of it?

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Sorry Bill but its a North American P-51B-15-NA Mustang 43-24837.

24837 (382nd FS, 363rd FG, 9th AF) crashed from unknown cause at Beckley, England Jun 10, 1944. Pilot bailed out and survived, aircraft was destroyed. Restored by Pacific Fighters and to civil registry as N515ZB
May 29, 2014 to Gardner Capital Management Corp of Little Falls, NJ as "Berlin Express"

You never know what changes the restorers made.