I Got to Fly the Collings Foundation P-51C Mustang!

Even though I was privileged enough to go up in the Collings Foundation’s dual-control, full-rear-cockpit P-51C Mustang for one hour, I’ll try to make this posting short and sweet. Not really an easy task since my flight was so full of incredible experiences!

After giving pilot Rob Collings my very short, non-pilot resume of about 45 hours of handling the controls on most of the single-engine Cessnas and Mooneys when I was a kid with my Dad many years ago and a very thorough aerobatic thrashing-about in a U.S. Navy T-34B while in college when I applied for Officer Candidate School, we strapped on parachutes and seat harnesses and we were off in the ‘51!

After about 10 minutes, we were at about 1,600 feet just off the SoCal coastline when I received the query from Rob, “Are you ready to fly a Mustang?” I responded with a quick “I have control of the aircraft.” Well, what next? With the exception of exactly one aileron roll and one loop, little ‘ole, inexperienced me was in complete command of this beast for the next 40 minutes of our one-hour flight; a 50-year dream come true! Under the eye of Rob, I literally had free reign to just PLAY with this aircraft for all of that time. Among a bunch of other things, I yanked and cranked, trying to “shoot” and fly through towering cloud wisps above a thin, broken cloud layer, playing fighter pilot. Due to my readily apparent lack of adequate control coordination, I was never quite able to accurately fly through a single one, ha! Believe me, this is not easy. I was skidding all over the place, but what a TREMENDOUS sense of speed maneuvering hard just a couple of hundred feet above the top of (and sometimes into) the cloud layer. My gosh.

I never received a single word of criticism from Rob, but I did get a couple of slow-burning, over-the-shoulder glares that conveyed the clear message “not exactly a stellar maneuver, chief.” Yeah, I know.

Another really fun aspect of our flight was that once I was in control of the airplane, we had very little to no ground visibility on much of our route. Though with Rob up front, this certainly was a non-issue (this airplane even has GPS), but I was determined to maintain awareness of our location and not have to admit that I was lost, which could have happened very easily. I only had a little whiskey compass in my cockpit but I am quite proud of the fact that I maintained awareness of our location since you can really cover an awful lot of distance in one hour in a ’51. I was able to steer us right smack on heading back down to Burbank Airport in preparation for a straight-in, high-speed (300 mph) low approach of less than 150 feet AGL to Runway 8 (Rob now in control of the aircraft, of course) and a 3+g, left-banking pitch-up and subsequent quick set-down on Runway 15, that Merlin engine just snarling and popping all the way. Sweet.

I know that there are several real ’51 pilots on WIX, but these are my non-pilot, quick-list impressions of the ’51. Feel free to correct me if you disagree:

– Very sensitive, finger-tip-light elevator control during cruise.
– Firm, very, very authoritative aeileron control during roll; you really get plastered into the seat even on a simple roll. Roll rate is huge. Holy cow.
– Very large trim changes on all axes when you really start to “crank and bank.” Not being knowledgeable enough to work the trim quickly, I basically just grabbed hold and pulled harder. No problem though. Especially at higher speeds, every control movement results in you really getting firmly g-forced one way or another in the cockpit. I was not used to this in my limited flying experience in slow airplanes but you would not believe how much fun this is. Really big control authority.
– Rudder control is very heavy at all times. This really does take some getting used to and it contributed to my overall lack of turn coordination. Seriously, I actually reached down to check if the toes of my size 14 boots were catching on something under the instrument panel and impeding my rudder control. Nope!
– The cockpit noise level is truly something to behold, especially during takeoff. Oh my gosh. This must be the highest cockpit noise level of any aircraft ever made, although some of the other Merlin- and Daimler-powered fighters probably equal it.
– The aircraft looks and feels very tiny from the cockpit with short, stubby wings and you can really, REALLY feel the power and the effect of that simply huge mass of the Rolls-Royce Merlin and big prop up front. In a way, that engine tells you where it wants to go. I can not overemphasize how powerful this aircraft feels. Simply and utterly amazing. Jeez. You really feel like you rule the skies; the impression is that this thing just doesn’t ever seem to slow down even on tight loops, completely unlike the little putters I have previously handled the controls on long ago (no loops experienced on the putters, of course, with the exception of the T-34B). You hardly ever even touch the throttle soon after takeoff and don’t need to. Just set it, make sure the friction is tightened up and just go.
– Cruise in this aircraft is not as butter-smooth as you would expect from a 12-cylinder engine, but it exhibits a very low-frequency, soft, medium amplitude, throbbing vibration that appears to be in sync with the RPM of the huge prop, not the engine RPM. I am not quite sure how to further explain this phenomenon, but it is there, but it is not at all objectionable.
– I must say that this aircraft, despite its 67-year-old provenance, is a very refined machine and I simply drank up every single minute of my flight in this famous airplane. I couldn’t believe how much freedom I was given to just play with this powerful machine for 40+ minutes, soaring among the clouds totally on my own despite being a non-pilot. Definitely a lifetime memory!
– Have no doubt, this is definitely not your father’s Cessna, ha!

Best,
– octane130 –