70 Years Young

For anyone familiar with central Florida weather, summer afternoons are usually punctuated by rapidly building thunderstorms containing incredible amounts of lightning and rain.  The mornings, however, are generally dominated by great flying weather – blue sky and light winds.  The other day was no exception and your unaware scribe, dropping by Kissimmee Gateway Airport (KISM), was fortunate enough to arrive with only seconds to spare.  The lads at Stallion 51 were returning to their home base from a two-ship P-51 excursion and at least one useable image recorded the event for posterity.

(above) Two North American P-51D Mustangs, N851D and N351DT, are part of the small fleet of working warbirds at Kissimmee Gateway-based Stallion 51.  Both were built in 1944 at the height of the Second World War and converted to two-seat, dual-control trainer configuration during their civilian use afterward.  In this view, N851D roars over the photographer for a short final approach to Runway 15.  Seventy years ago, when N851D rolled off North American’s Dallas, Texas assembly line, the P-51 was making significant contributions to the Allied war effort in the European, Mediterranean, China and Burma-India theaters of operation.  The white and black stripes, shown to advantage here, were identification markings adopted for use on Allied aircraft of all sorts during Operation Overlord.  The largest seaborne invasion in history was launched on 6 June 1944 to liberate Europe and the stripes were still in use in August.