Hi People,

May I suggest that anyone that is interested in the subject of the how and why of the P51 Mustang cooling system go and have a look at the following URLs;  it might just help to dispell a lot of fuzzy presuppositions and apriori assumptions:

http://www.airspacemag.com/asm/mag/supp/jj99/Mustang.html

The following will also assist in clarification of any misconceptions.

http://www.boeing.com/news/feature/atwood/atwood3.html

If you want to know even more,  the key words for a Google search are "Meredith Effect" and "Atwood".  Enjoy!!

Interestingly,  there were two other aircraft around that time that used the same idea with great success:

Both the Martin Baker MB-5 See:

http://kits.prohosting.com/mb5previewbg_1.htm
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_other/mb5i.html

and the local Aussie CAC CA-15 "Kangaroo" used the same principle.

http://www.dropbears.com/av/KFXart/articles/ca15.htm
http://users.chariot.net.au/~theburfs/ca15MAIN.html

The CA-15 was definitely the fastest - 502 MPH -(and last) piston engined fighter in the world. Unfortunately,  it just wasn't as fast as the emerging jet technology,  and the CAC (Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation) ended up building the mighty Avon Sabre for the RAAF. Unfortunately.  only one CA-15 was ever made,  and sadly, mulitple acts of serial bastardry by our wonderful aviation bureaucrats at the time saw it reduced to a pile of parts instead of being carefully preserved as a monument to our wonderful aero designers,  engineers and LAME tradesmen. Cheers,

Leon Promet
leon@aerota.com
0408 223 675