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  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

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Different P51's?

ryanbatc

ryanbatc

Charter Member
Hey I have a question about these two P51's...

The first one I took at an airshow in Fargo, ND mid-2007.

This other one has almost the same paint but with two props? Is that a mod for an air race or what? Or did Precious Metal crash shortly after 2007 and was it rebuilt with two props? I seem to remember two P51's crashing at Oshkosh either 07 or 08...

Anyone know?

p.s. Also I've been trying to find the identity of the blue camo aircraft on the right?

IMG_2257.jpg




IMG_2202.jpg


0816813.jpg
 
It does give better performance.

Also reduces P-factor, which is always useful when you're making quick throttle changes at low level.
 
They're two separate aircraft.

N6WJ has had the twin-props since the late 1980's, and was built as a Reno racer, although it has only raced there sporadically.

The other Precious Metal is NX8082U, which was involved in the accident at Oshkosh in 2007, killing Gerry Beck, the owner and pilot. When NX8082U wasn't flying, it was normally on display at the Fargo Air Museum (Beck lived in North Dakota), which is probably why you saw it at the airshow.

NX8082U was actually a replica P-51A built off the original plans, and before the accident Beck had announced plans to produce a limited number of "new" P-51's, but the idea appears to have been scrapped after his death.

In a strange coincidence, the P-51 that Precious Metal collided with at Oshkosh was built and owned by another North Dakota resident, a well known warbird restorer named Robert Odegaard, who also owns the F2G Corsair and DC-3 at the Fargo Air Museum.

As far as I can tell, Robert Odegaard bears no relation to the John D. Odegard that founded the UND Aerospace school.
 
To continue off of what azflyboy has written:

Gerry Beck's P-51A, was painted to resemble the Griffon-powered, contra-rotating propped, Reno-racer "Precious Metal", just for the filming of the movie Thunder Over Reno - filming which had just started, immediately after the aircraft was completed. By the end of 2007/2008, it was going to be repainted in a WWII-authentic scheme, but of course that never happened, with the crash that took Gerry's life in the summer of 2007 (the other Mustang involved that day, the Odegaard's P-51D, has now been flying once again "Stang - formerly Dazzling Donna").

The remains of Gerry's P-51A were recovered, and there are many rumors that it has been under rebuild. There do seem to be plans underway as well, continuing to build those ten new-build P-51A's - of which if you go to the Beck's Tri-State Aviation shop, one will find many P-51A manufactured assemblies, all times 10.

Here are the two individual Mustangs you have pictured:
http://mustangsmustangs.net/p-51/p51survivors/pages/43-BeckA.php

http://mustangsmustangs.net/p-51/p51survivors/pages/87-4488.php
 
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