Vacation plans anyone? - Royal Canadian Regiment - Rabid Beavers

It was incredible. I flew it January 28 2009 too so this was my 2nd time driving one. They are dual seat and I think there's only 14 or so of them in the world. The two I flew are called Crazy Horse and Crazy Horse II and are pretty much identical at first glance with their blue noses.
The first time I flew, it was wheels up climb to 2,000' and then the stick was mine. We took off out of Kissimmee airport and headed about 50 miles south to the Avon Bombing range which is military airspace and they are allowed in. Along the way the pilot has you do a few maneuvers to see what you can do. Once there we started playing around with slow speed stalls, which apparently is a great tummy test. The sensation of falling backwards and the excitement usually makes the tummy give up breakfast. I had absolutely no problem with that at any time with either flight. During the first flight my "certificate" says I did Taxi, Steep turns, Slow flight, Stalls, Accel stalls, Barrel Roll, Loop, Split S, Overhead Break and a max of 4.5G's at 310Kts. The Merlin is so powerful that in a heart beat we were over 11,000' and climbing. When you do get close to stalling it the stick starts to tap back a little and all you need to do is push the stick forward a touch and engine just pulls!! I flew it back to the airport and did the initial pass and took it around for the landing. I lined it up on the runway to about 500' then passed it back to the pilot. Hardest thing I found was trying to zig-zag steer it while going back to the hanger. The rudder pedals are heavy and there's a delay so for a second or two you get a feeling like it may hit the grass.

The second time was April 21 and like the first, was a 1 hour flight but was in Crazy Horse II this time. It was a 2 ship flight with Crazy Horse which I'd flown last time. We took off together with the other P-51 in lead. I got some great pictures while we were getting wheels up. We quickly climbed and headed south again. We hit 5,000' in less than a minute where we leveled off for a bit so I could practice formation flying. It was pretty nerve wracking but the stick is so sensitive when it's trimmed out that all you need to do is think about it and it moves for you. I got a great picture of me flying about 20' off the other wing......who says I can't fly and take pictures at the same time?

We did that for about 5 minutes then split off to do our own thing till it was time to land. This time I flew it allot harder and although I only maxed out at 4G's at 315Kts it was a much more sustained. The nose was pointed at the ground or clouds for the most part and I could feel it in my shoulders and neck later that day. This time I did most of the same things I did the first time along with Wing Over's, Aileron Roll, Barrel Roll, 4 point roll, Cuban 8, Loop, Immelman, Formation and made a perfect dead center landing just after the numbers!! That part was cool and I wasn't sure I could do it.
What was really cool about the 2nd flight was when the other P-51 rejoined us to land. We were in communication with it all the way and knew where it was coming from behind us. I had it trimmed out perfect so you don't even have to hang on to the stick to fly it which gave me lots of time to look around behind us for him. He came in from high on our port side so fast that it looked like a razor blade slicing in on us, then pulled right in on our starboard quarter. No idea how they fought like that during the war. If it would have been a gun fight, I'd have been doing the parachute jump that day too.........and I knew where he was coming from!!
They have 3 onboard cameras that film the whole flight so I got some fantastic videos from both. If you search for Crazy Horse on YouTube someone has parts of their video on there. The link below is the place I flew it and I think they have some video up there too. I'd post some pictures here but the site doesn't have the ability. After this one I was kicking around the hanger taking pictures etc. when John, my pilot told me they just got a jet too. So we went next door to the other hanger to take a look at it. It's a L-39 trainer fighter jet.............and yes.......I'm thinking I need to do that one now!! Just don't tell my wife how much this costs!!

So that's about it...............

http://www.stallion51.com/p51-mustang-ops.shtml