For P-51 Fans - A Video Tour of Midwest Aero Restorations
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Thread: For P-51 Fans - A Video Tour of Midwest Aero Restorations

  1. #1

    For P-51 Fans - A Video Tour of Midwest Aero Restorations

    Not sure if this has been posted before, but for the P-51 fans amongst us (and those interested in the world of historic aircraft restorations), here's a video of a tour of Midwest Aero's facility at Danville, Illinois.



    Cheers

    Paul

  2. #2
    Thanks for posting this Paul - had seen it a little while back. It's a treat to have such access to their shop. I thought it rather amusing when they show a video clip of a scale homebuilt P-51 painted in "Live Bait" markings as being the aircraft "before restoration" (and when they have photos of the wrong "Cripes A' Mighty"). : ) In the last part, when Mike Vadeboncoeur is discussing the restoration of "Was That Too Fast", it brings up some of the same things I ran into when developing the Korean War-era Mustangs in Warbirdsim's "Mustang Tales". I've been looking forward to seeing "Frances Dell" flying soon (the former "Glamorous Gal", which was damaged in a hard landing a few years back). As can be seen in the video, they also have another ground-up P-51D build they are working on, in addition to "Frances Dell" and the repair work on "Red Dog". Not seen in the video is the (original) Bf-109G project that they are also restoring to airworthy, for the same guy that owns "Happy Jack's Go Buggy". (In the video, the guy mentions that the owner of "Happy Jack's Go Buggy" flies the wings off of it, and its true - just about every weekend he's flying it, to and from various airports around the San Antonio area.)


    Speaking of Mustang restorations, the combat-vet P-51D "Sierra Sue II" at Aircorps Aviation, which is the most accurately/authentically restored P-51 to-date, had its first engine run and taxi test yesterday, and everything went great. Also, the P-51C "Berlin Express" restoration at Pacific Fighters should be emerging from the paint shop this weekend with all of the final details of its paint scheme completed, and I hear word that they might be aiming to have it at Reno in a couple weeks for the National Aviation Heritage Invitational, which corresponds with the air races.

  3. #3
    Thanks for the info John.

    I thought that picture of 'Live Bait' looked a little odd!

    Speaking of the Aircorps Aviation restoration of 'Sierra Sue II', I found this video of them mating the fuselage to the wings.



    I quite like the scheme on this P-51, and I seem to recall Jan Kees Blom did a repaint of it for one of your Mustang series.

    Looks like an exciting time for Mustang owners and fans!

    Cheers

    Paul

  4. #4
    That was from the first time the wing was mated - then it was taken back off and finished (putty, sanding, and paint, as per done at the factory) before being re-mated a couple weeks ago. The guy that did that film, along with a few other great films about Aircorps, says that he will have a full film documenting the complete restoration of the aircraft, which should be spectacular to see.

    The restoration of "Sierra Sue II" is really something else. The rivets, for instance, are a myriad of silver, yellow, blue, and in some cases red, all depending on their types of finishes and uses, as per original. In original color photos of Mustangs up-close, the rivets all over the fuselage are a mixture of yellow (iridite) and silver (anodized), and that is exactly how it is in the restoration (the blue rivets generally only show up on the wings, and the red rivets are exploding rivets, used wherever you can't get a buck). Up-close, you will also see remnants in areas from the period Alcoa and Reynolds aluminum die watermarks - just like from the factory, even though there was an effort to remove them, it wasn't a perfect/absolute removal. The aluminum itself has not been polished, and just left in the production finish as per original from the factory. Many of the parts throughout the airframe have streaks in the primer finishes, as again, per the factory, the parts were dipped in primer, in many cases, rather than sprayed. The stencils throughout the aircraft were done with ink-stamps, per original, so the stencils have nowhere near a perfect/even application when you see them up-close. The fuselage was assembled with all of the parts either being primered chromate yellow or green, or as in many cases, not primered at all, as per original, and the cockpit wasn't sprayed interior green until the fuselage was assembled, just like in original production, leaving behind 'overspray' in areas that the painter can't easily reach once the fuselage is assembled. And I can go on and on about this restoration. Wherever it shows up (such as EAA Airventure 2015), it's not going to have any possible competition as far as authentic warbird restorations go.

    I can't wait to see how faithful they are to the original artwork. There have been some past depictions, but they are awful compared to the quality of how the original artwork really looked, given a photo that has come to the surface in recent years.






    This is how it should end up looking, in its final markings of the war, with the lightning bolt.


  5. #5
    Here's another great video for anyone who is a fan of Mustangs, that was filmed earlier this year when the CAF Redtail Squadron's P-51C received a new Merlin engine and annual at Aircorps Aviation. Note that in the film, the test pilot's named is quite mangled - the pilot is of course the well known Doug Rozendaal.


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