Quote:
Originally Posted by Yale
Years of plastic/balsa experience when young put me absolutely in awe of such craftsmanship with paper. My hat's off to you, and to all the other superb modellers who participate in this forum.
I'm sure that you know the history of the P-51, with its US-designed airframe and British-designed engine. But do you know why the name Mustang was so appropriate for such an Anglo-American composite?
It was upper-crust slang for an American heiress who married into the British aristocracy.
Best regards.
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Problem with that thesis is, when the British first purchased and
named their new North American Aviation (NAA) fighter in 1940, it was an American airframe equipped with an American engine (Allison). The British designed Merlin did not appear in the Mustang line until 1942, and then only in prototype, with subsequent production beginning in 1943 with Packard built Merlins. IIRC, the British based their name choice on the wild horse prevalent in North America.
While on the subject, the name "Apache" has been bandied about as an earlier name for the Allison equipped Mustang. Fact is, both the USAAF and RAF only
ever referred to those earlier Mustangs as such, Apache being the invention of someone in the NAA public relations department in an attempt to sell the then British fighter to the U.S. Air Corps. When the USAAF finally did start buying the "Mustang" (first as the A-36 dive bomber, then later as the P-51 series), it kept the British name of Mustang. Apache never was an "official" name. The A-36 dive bomber version did, briefly, enjoy the name of "Invader", but that was local to the units in Italy who used the type, and lobbied for that name. The USAAF never adopted that name for the A-36 as it was already slated to be used for the Douglas A-26 bomber, later to be known as the B-26.
Mike