[mayfair35]

Hello David,

Please call me Art; Mr. Fiedler makes me feel even older than I am!
Yes by all means the other aircraft were certainly worthy of attention and respect. It has been many years since I saw a P-63, but Barrie Davis who was also there from the 325th FG flew them as "Pinball" machines at the end of the war. The Lancaster was certainly a highlight of the show that we had never dreamed of seeing. And of course, the B-17 was always my favorite to escort, and I enjoyed seeing it again.

The P-47 named Hun Hunter is interesting. One of our aces named his
P-51 'Hun Hunter' and was ordered by higher headquarters to remove the name. No explanation was given, just the order. He never put another name on it.

I thought the P-51 in the Unlimited Class (Can't come up with its name at the moment) with the counterrotating props was in a class all by itself. One of the crew told a friend of mine that its top speed was 502 mph! At the Reno air races, you can really tell when one of the souped up 51s comes by. The noise is quite different. I was surprised to have one of the pilots tell me he pulled between 120 and 130"Hg and used 3400 rpm. Compared with our 61" Hg and 3000 rpm, that is quite a difference.

He also explained that they had to cut off some of the wing and horizontal tail plane to reduce the lift. I knew what he meant as at 400 mph, the Mustang was said to fly 11° nose down. Can't verify the exact figure but pulling out of a dive with my wingman, I was astounded to see how far his nose was down in straight and level flight when doing about 450 mph.

Ah well, there I go again getting into war stories. Excuse!

Cordially, Art