The Gathering of Mustangs and Legends

[mayfair35]

Gentlemen:

I just returned from The Gathering of Mustangs and Legends. It was an incredible event set up by Stallion 51 of Kissimmee, Fl. Lee Lauderback outdid himself in the planning, coordinating, and executing of this unbelievable event. The original plans called for 100 Mustangs and 51 Legends. I heard various figures for the number of Mustangs that made it. The latest one, but unconfirmed, is 79.

It is impossible to cover all the individual things that happened but the F-16, F-15, and F-22 performed very exciting flyovers. The Thunderbirds and several outstanding private stunt planes executed many very daring maneuvers. There were B-17s, P-47s. a P-40, a C-5 (?), a Lancaster bomber from Canada, a P-51 in the unlimited class, and a P-51 from England that had been disassembled, shipped here, and reassembled for the show. I am sure there are several others that I missed but I was so busy, I hope you will excuse it.

Should you want to see excellent pictures of the event, I will list a site to check into. I assure you that you will not be disappointed. The photos were shot by Laura who is a member of Nathan Davis’ crew. Nathan has painted his P-51 as ‘Herky’ Green’s was in September 1944. Of course, there are a lot of pictures of his “family” crew but many outstanding ones of the show and the multitude of P-51s. There were 3 of us from the 325th “Checkertail” Ftr. Grp. in attendance: Barrie Davis, John Gaston, and myself. We were like kids with a new toy. Have to chuckle that both Barrie and I had to have a helping hand to get our leg into the cockpit. We both agreed that somehow Nathan increased the height from the top of the wing to the edge of the cockpit. We certainly could not have had a problem getting into the cockpit as we originally did it many, many times. Someone made a dastardly comment that perhaps our ages of 84 had something to do with it!

I apologize for the lengthy discourse but no matter how much I wrote, nor how eloquent I did it, I could not possibly do justice to this once in a lifetime tribute to the P-51 Mustang.

http://www.laurastants.com/funflying.htm

Cordially, Art Fiedler