Photo: Platinum Fighters/Jeff Stormer
Today we have Mustangs on the road, but there was a time when they flew in the skies, trying to fend off the Nazi threat – this was one of the most famous fighters of the Second World War, the North American Aviation P-51 Mustang.
Deployed in 1942 in the Air Forces of several countries (U.S., UK, New Zealand, and Canada), the Mustang was so successful that by the time production ended, some 15,000 of them were made and used on the aerial battlefields. A great number of them flew well after the war ended.
Several variants of the Mustang were made, but the most notable is the P-51D. Powered by Packard engines and armed with things like .50 caliber Browning machine guns, the Mustangs managed to fend off enemy airplanes repeatedly, and on board such airplanes the aces of the war made themselves known.
One of those aces was Air Force lieutenant general Charles Curtis Pattillo (Buck Pattillo). Having joined the Air Force in 1942, he was dispatched to the European front in 1944, assigned to the 352nd Fighter Group, Eighth Air Force. He flew a Mustang nicknamed Little Rebel in 37 combat missions, and became an Ace in a Day on 16 April 1945 after destroying five enemy fighters on the ground – air-to-ground kills count just as air to air ones.
Buck Pattillo died in 2019, aged 94, but not before flying, ten years earlier, in Mustangs painted in his markings, during the EAA Airventure Oshkosh event. He did so together with his brother, Cuthbert “Bill” Pattillo, he too a war ace.
The P-51 Mustang we have here honors Buck Pattillo and his Little Rebel fighter. It is an aircraft made in 1945, and restored not long ago. The bare metal fuselage sports Little Rebel markings on the nose, and five swastika on the side, representing the number of enemy aircraft destroyed in a day. The airplane is “restored to original WWII military configuration.”
The Mustang is for sale on Platinum Fighters, and the asking price is $2,5 million.
Several variants of the Mustang were made, but the most notable is the P-51D. Powered by Packard engines and armed with things like .50 caliber Browning machine guns, the Mustangs managed to fend off enemy airplanes repeatedly, and on board such airplanes the aces of the war made themselves known.
One of those aces was Air Force lieutenant general Charles Curtis Pattillo (Buck Pattillo). Having joined the Air Force in 1942, he was dispatched to the European front in 1944, assigned to the 352nd Fighter Group, Eighth Air Force. He flew a Mustang nicknamed Little Rebel in 37 combat missions, and became an Ace in a Day on 16 April 1945 after destroying five enemy fighters on the ground – air-to-ground kills count just as air to air ones.
Buck Pattillo died in 2019, aged 94, but not before flying, ten years earlier, in Mustangs painted in his markings, during the EAA Airventure Oshkosh event. He did so together with his brother, Cuthbert “Bill” Pattillo, he too a war ace.
The P-51 Mustang we have here honors Buck Pattillo and his Little Rebel fighter. It is an aircraft made in 1945, and restored not long ago. The bare metal fuselage sports Little Rebel markings on the nose, and five swastika on the side, representing the number of enemy aircraft destroyed in a day. The airplane is “restored to original WWII military configuration.”
The Mustang is for sale on Platinum Fighters, and the asking price is $2,5 million.
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