Originally Posted by
Mick
Yes, the F-51 was used in Korea, but not to deal with the Yaks. (The F-82s and F-80s could handle them well enough.) It was used for ground attack.
The F-51 was brought in when the Air Force suddenly realized that it had just finished scrapping the last examples of the plane they really needed, the F-47 Thunderbolt. The Mustang wasn't a very good choice for the ground attack role, as its liquid cooling system made it very vulnerable to ground fire (an expensive lesson that the USAAF had already learned in WW2, when many P-51's and their pilots, including several top fighter aces, were lost to ground fire) but it was the only relatively slow fighter-bomber available and the F-80s were too fast to do the job with the desired precision. (Despite that, the F-80 and F-84 were used in vast numbers in the ground attack role as the war went on, and they did the job quite well.)
All the Mustangs used in Korea were the older D model, and the Air Force had to scour the Air National Guard to get them back. The faster, lighter and less sturdy H models were retained at home for air defense until they could be replaced by jets - which were in short supply due to the war in Korea.
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