Windshield

NAA P-51D Mustang: Front Fuselage

Following a recent inquiry, I have revisited the NAA P-51 Mustang project to develop the front fuselage and cockpit. This will be an extremely detailed and accurate model including fixings and rivet holes.

P-51D Early.png

The partial structure above is for the early P-51D version; note the instrument panel and support frame. There are also some minor differences with the other components, most notably the curved beam which has different end brackets for the early and late versions.

The 2 instrument panels depicting the P-51D versions, with the later version on the right. This will be a medium to long term project for which I will post regular updates.

NAA P-51D Mustang: Canopy

With the return to the P-51D project, I have been working on developing the fuselage and the canopy ordinates specific to the P-51D. Supporting information in this regard is hard to come by and we don’t have the luxury of tabulated ordinate values and fully detailed mold lines as we had with the P-51 B/C.

What we do have though is critical dimensions scattered amongst the 100s of drawings and documents that collectively help establish key datum points which in conjunction with conic geometric development appear to make this aspiration a feasible prospect. To give you some idea of progress this is a front view of the preliminary P-51D canopy model.

P-51D Canopy Front

I still have the windshield model to develop in order to finalise the canopy design but I am pleased with achieving this amount of progress derived from many hours of research and some straightforward geometric developments. Notice in particular the accurate tangency alignment with the known frame mold lines, it is perfectly aligned. I appreciate that there are a few variations on the profile of the canopies that were made for the P-51; some more bulbous than others, but we first need to establish a baseline which is what we will have.

As a consequence of this activity, I have also managed to develop the rear fuselage profile ordinates for the P-51D. I am rather excited by this new development in conjunction with the completed wing ordinates and the more recent vertical stabiliser it may actually be possible to have a full ordinate set uniquely for the P-51D.

Update: Below is the finished baseline canopy model profile.

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