P-51C-10 & C-11-NT

[Revi16]

Interesting question.

Here's what little info. that I could find.

The first P-51B flew on May 5, 1943, and the first P-51C flew on August 5 of that year. Inglewood built 1988 P-51Bs and Dallas built 1750 P-51Cs. The P-51Cs on the 1942 and 1943 budgets were given the company designation NA-103. 1350 NA-103s were built. Texas-built aircraft in the 1944 budget were designated NA-111.

P-51C-11NT*NA-111*111-28916111-28950*44-10783 44-10817
P-51C-11NT*NA-111*111-28986111-28991*44-10853 44-10858
P-51C-11NT*NA-111*111-29170111-29255*44-11037 44-11122

[drgondog]

I am only speculating but it is possible that the vertical stabilizer ventral fin was added at the factory for the last series of P-51C-10 but for sure the last 20 P-51C-10's were converted at the factory for F6C-10 Recon. It is also possible that the -11 was the break from 1650-3 to 1650-7 Merlins. Whether or not they actually designated a -11 block is unknown to me. Gruenhagen has block 44-10753 thru 44-11152 as P-51C-10's

It is possible that there was a typo by Gruenhagen when he transitioned from Contract NA-103 (P-51C-1NT through P-51C-10 first award) to NA-111 where he references 400 more P-51C-10s built after the first block of 550 -10's. Having said that, the NA-111 was also the contact number for ALL of the P-51K's

[Revi16]

Just got a reply on the P-51 SIG and the -11 was a C-model modified (by virtue of radio and compass differences) for service in the CBI.

Here's the SIG link:
http://p51sig.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=82&p=442#p442