The Mustang
The North American P-51 Mustang is one of the truly great aircraft of all time. The first prototype flew in October 1940. It was not until the more powerful Merlin engines were fitted into Mustangs that the Mustang came into it’s own.  The earlier engine, the Allison 1100 V-1710-P3R inline was not powerful enough to let the Mustang go fast enough. 
The Mustang excelled competitors in two fields, hard-hitting low level fighter bomber and a long range high altitude escort fighter. With two drop tanks, one under each wing, the Mustang could fly as far into Germany as Berlin to escort the bombers. No other allied aircraft could do this at the time. The drop tanks increased the range to 2080 miles (3348 km). The later D mark was fitted with Perspex canopy instead of the old framed hood. The Mustang was well loved by ground crew and pilots alike and greatly feared by German and Japanese pilots.
Technical Details. 

           The Mustang had a maximum speed of  413mph at 5000 feet. It’s maximum altitude was 41 900 feet (12771 m). It had a range of 950 miles (1529km.)  It weighed 7125lb (3232kg) empty and 10100lb (4582kg) fully laden. It’s engine was a Packard-built Merlin V-1650-7 liquid cooled 12 cylinder Vee inline piston engine with a two-speed, two stage supercharger with a four bladed propeller. It could carry a maximum of 2000lb (908kg) of weapons and 269 US gallons (1018 litres) of fuel internally and two 75 US gallon (284 litre) external fuel tanks under the wings.
Armament
It was armed with six 0.5 inch (12.7mm) Browning MG 53-2 machine guns with 400 rounds for each gun for the inboard guns and 270 for the outboard guns. It could carry 2000lb (907kg) of bombs or ten 5 inch (12.7cm) rockets.
Drawings of a Mustang B used in the U.K. during the summer of 1944.

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