"He was within eight knots of stalling that thing"
Why did this P-51 Mustang land on a World War II US Navy aircraft carrier?
The outstanding US land-based fighter of World War II was the P-51 Mustang
Nearly 15,000 Mustangs were produced during the war
During that time the Navy kept a careful eye on the US Army's development of the Mustang...
...thinking it could hold potential as a carrier-based long-distance escort fighter
Then in 1944 a P-51D was acquired for carrier evaluation
This particular P-51D was fitted with an arresting hook attached...
...to a reinforced bulkhead behind the tail wheel
Additionally the tires were replaced with special high-pressure tires
And finally a catapult hook was installed between the main landing gear
Testing of this Navy version of the P-51 began at Mustin Field near Philadelphia in September, 1944
Now I wasn't aware of this piece of naval aviation history...
...until I met this guy...
I'm Bob Kettenheim. I'm the historian for the USS Shangri-La Association
I was interviewing Bob Kettenheim about the history behind...
the WWII aircraft carrier USS Shangri-La...
...when he started telling me this crazy story
They wanted an escort for B-29s
B-29s were flying long distances
They needed a way to escort them
Well the 51's wouldn't escort them that far...
...so they needed something closer to the target where they could put these up in numbers
The theory was that we'll take a look at the P-51
It can stay with the B29's...
...meet them somewhere around the target, and escort them in
As modified the P-51D fighter, Army Air Force serial number 44-14017...
...was re-designated ETF-51D
However it was not assigned a Navy Bureau number, as is sometimes reported
Additionally references to the name "Sea Horse" have been found in some documents...
...but that was never made official by the U.S Navy
On November 15, 1944 at 12:20pm...
... 26 year-old Lieutenant Robert Bob Elder began carrier trials on
board the USS Shangri-La aircraft carrier, CV-38
So Bob Elder, who was a test pilot out of the Philadelphia facility at the time...
... he flew it down, landed several times, no problems whatsoever...
... with the exception of a different stall speed
He knew this thing was sluggish
and was on the verge of a stall as it was coming into the groove
He was within eight knots of stalling that thing...
... and he said this is not made for carriers
When you read into that project, the Navy loves the radial engine
They don't like the in-line engine, for a whole bunch of reasons
First off, it was liquid-cooled
That coolant is gonna have to come from some stores on board the ship
So now you've got to store this stuff, that this ship was not built for
The coolant is flammable, so now you got another problem with onboard ships...
...you know, ships and fires don't mix
Damage...
Aircraft that are damaged with liquid-cooled engines...
... a lot of times don't come back...
... and you're navigating over open ocean
Where the air-cooled engine, you could knock out a cylinder or two...
...and still make it back to the ship, and a lot of them did
The Navy also painted the outline of a carrier deck on some of their runways for training...
... and they did that up in Philadelphia and used arresting gear
That's where they tested this and made sure that that aircraft was
able to sustain an arrested landing
Somewhat related to another reason why the Mustang didn't come about...
...because the F8F Bearcat was coming off the assembly line
and they were getting ready to hit the fleet...
... and those were an extremely high-performance fast aircraft that could outfly anything
And that's one of the reasons why the Mustang didn't come about