Mustang: F-51, A-36, F-82, Cavalier, and Piper PA-48 Enforcer

[jcf]

RM.14SM was a company rating and was applied to several different marks of Merlin that powered various aircraft including the Hornet/Sea Hornet, the Tudor I and II,the Lancastrian I and the North Star.
The Merlin 66 and the V-1650-7 were both rated RM.10SM

Griffons had RG ratings.

The Buzzard of 1925 begat the "R" racing engine which begat the Griffon I which was majorly redesigned along the lines of an enlarged capacity PV.12(Merlin) to produce the Griffon II which is the engine we all think of when we hear the name.

The PV.12(Merlin) was a separate project that proceeded along a different path than that of the "R"...evidently in some of the earliest conceptions and the earliest mockup of what became the PV.12, the engine was in the form of an inverted V-12. That should give fodder for interesting What-ifs.
PV = Private Venture.

Again info from Lumsden "British Piston Aero Engines and Their Aircraft".

Cheers, Jon

[Captain Canada]

Just reading an article about it. I had always loved the way it looked. Just a tough looking aeroplane, and with those tip tanks ? Mmmm.....

Anyways, in the big scheme of things, I kinda have to agree with the USAF for not wanting it. Sure it was cheaper, but no way could it hold a candle to the A-10s abilities.

Also, if it took a pair of Mustangs to build an Enforcer, how many would be left on the warbird circuit ?

How about kits ? Any of them out there ? Or is more of a cut and chop a P-51 kit type thing ?

Cheers

[upnorth]

Was there not a vac form Enforcer many moons ago?

I also like the Enforcer's looks, but it was still a case of old wine in a new bottle. Legend the Mustang was, its progeny really had no place in a First World nation's air force in that time frame.

[gunfighter]

Sure the enforcer does not give the punch of the thunderbolt, but I still can see a niche for it in several missions:
First, some FAC and training aircraft such as Broncos, O-2, T-6, OA-37, etc, maybe the enforcer was a more suitable platform, even cheaper.
Many export customers of MB326s, Tucanos, PC-7s and PC-9s, Pucaras, can get this aircraft instead.
Nowadays, the remaining could be good decoys, drones or even UAV/UCAVs  
The most important example of the need for such a plane is the brazilian ALX, I think.
Anyway, it´s very good looking.  

[Mossie]

I always prefered the Cavalier Turbo, I guess it's because I think if you're going to make a beautiful bird like the Mustang look odd with all that ordanance on it, you might as well go the hole hog & give it a dodgy nose job too!

Still like it though, but I'm with upnorth, there's other aircraft that would have been much more suitable for upgrade in that time frame, capabable of similar performance with a greater load for similar cost.

[Damian2]

I love it!!! As far as I know Heritage Aviation makes a resin conversion kit in 1/48 for the Tamiya P-51.

I'm all for building my own version

[Jeffry Fontaine]

The was a small garage kit company called Ready Room that sold a couple of Mustang conversion kits.  These were very primitive multi-media resin, metal, vacu-form conversion kits which required the sacrifice of a good P-51D Mustang kit to make it.  I have yet to see anyone build these kits and Ready Room is now out of production.  The product line included the Cavalier Turbo-Mustang, Piper PA-48 Enforcer and possibly a  regular Cavalier Mustang, all of which were conversion kits.

I was curious to know more about this particular kit as I was interested in the PA-48 and thought it would be nice to have one in 1/48th scale.  Little did I know what I was in for.  I made an inquiry on ARC a couple of years back and all of a sudden I get a package from a guy in Canada containing the Ready Room conversion kit.  Well that was a surprise and after sitting down and really going over the details I then understood why it was GIVEN to me.  About the only thing worthwhile in the kit is the references and instructions on how to paint the kit.  Everything else was just a space filler, a real sows ear waiting to be turned into a silk purse.  Not for me I decided and like a fruitcake, this became a regift to our very own Barry Snell so once again, the Ready Room kit crossed the border and went back to Canada where I hope it stays, buried or converted into its basic elements after being consumed by fire. 

I have since then acquired the Heritage Cavalier Turbo-Mustang resin conversion which provides a resin nose and some other odds and ends for a much easier conversion project.  If only the folks at Legato would keep up their end of the bargain and produce the PA-48 Enforcer kit as they had intended.  I would be most pleased with acquiring one or two of them in 1/48th scale.

[van883]

I love the way it looks-but I seem to recall a major issue was very poor visibility forward and down due to the long nose. Hard to see your target. Similar problem with the Firebrand and other long nosed prop aircraft.
It was a romantic retrograde step. I'd like kit in 72 scale though...

Van

[elmayerle]

I love it!!! As far as I know Heritage Aviation makes a resin conversion kit in 1/48 for the Tamiya P-51.

I wonder how that conversion would look done to a P-51B?  Or one of the cannon-armed P-51s?

[Iranian F-14A]

The '80s were made up of alot of smaller or "bush wars",so in that sense,I'm kinda suprised someone didn't order it.You have Panama,Nicaragua,Granada,the drug wars in Colombia,not to mention all the stuff going on in Africa and Asia.Today in Afghanistan and Iraq,the Enforcer would be good as well,for the COIN,armed recon, and the C/SAR escort role.As far as which model I like best,I'd have to say both.

I think I read somewhere that the official reason the project died was something along the lines of the USAF saw no need for it(since at the time they wanted sleek Mach 2+ fighters for fighting WWIII with the Russians) and the Department of Defense didn't want it exported since some of the possible customers(Third World countries) could at some point in the future use it against our guys on the ground.So,that leave us with a plane that wasn't good enough for our own AF but too good to let anyone else have it.

[royabulgaf]

Today in Afghanistan and Iraq,the Enforcer would be good as well,for the COIN,armed recon, and the C/SAR escort role.

Not really.  This was dreamed up back 30 years ago when COIN was looked at as chasing some AK-47 brandishing malcontents.  Although its armament was better for COIN than the A-10 (that 30mm is way overkill for anti-personnel) it simply could not carry the armor needed to face man-portable SAMs and survive.  

Merlin did a 1/72 kit many years ago.  You are better taking a mid-grade P-51D kit such as the Heller kit, and doing the conversion.  Use the Dallas canopy, cut off the radiator scoop, lengthen the fuselage, and do the P-51H tail and elevators.

Kim M

[Spey_Phantom]

ive gonna chop up a P-51D one day and build me an enforcer, both in 1/144 and 1/72.
there's some good south-american enforcer whiffs in that aircraft: Brasilian, Peruvian, Venezuelan, Columbian, Honduras, Argentine, Chile,....

thats it, im building one this year, maybe for the 1 week GB    

[Jeffry Fontaine]

P-51D fuselage with smaller scale A-10 wings and JHM TP-51 Turbine Engine cowling conversion and tricycle landing gear.  The intent here is to create a Mustang Mud Fighter for close air support as a real contender for the role proposed for the Piper PA-48 Enforcer.  The A-10 wings would provide better low altitude performance as well as additional weapons pylons for bombs, rockets, gun pods, and fuel tanks.  
         
P-51D fuselage and JHM TP-51 Turbine Engine cowling conversion using the nose wheel.  

[Archangel]

What about an F-82 style single fuselage with turboprop engine from the same makeras the turbo S-2s? Keep the A-10 style wing and you might have a plane the size of an A-1 Skyraider and maybe the same weapons load.

[elmayerle]

Hmm, since they both have single-piece wings, how about a P-51 or F-82 fuselage with the JHM turboprop nose conversion and the wing of the FFA P.16 (Learjet could build the wing under subcontract since most Learjet wings are derived from the P.16's wing).  You'd get three strong hardpoints under each wing plus some good sized tiptanks that could be mod'd for other uses.

Note, for modelling purposes in 1/48, use the wing from the Testors/ITC Learjet Model 23/24 kit, I don't see that the constant chord extension of the Learjet Model 35/36 buys you anything in a combat aircraft since it doesn't have the structure to add more pylons.  Still, something might be done about that if you put them right where the join of the new section to the older structure is.