wanttaja@ssc-vax.UUCP (Ronald J Wanttaja) (11/30/84)
> Incidentally, there is also a *NORTH* American country that has plans > to use the P-51. (No pun intended -- the plane was originally > manufactured by North American Aviation.) Piper Aircraft Co. is > trying to sell the idea of a turboprop-powered P-51 to the USAF as a > close-support plane. They call it the "Enforcer," but I don't think > anyone is taking the idea too seriously -- for one thing, P-51 > airframes are incredibly rare, and I would imagine that setting up the > tooling to manufacture new one would be too expensive to be > competitive with currently-manufactured foreign planes of this type. -- > Jan Wolitzky, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ; (201) 582-2998 Yep, once again the triumph of lobbying money over common sense. If anyone hasn't seen pictures of the Piper Enforcer, it bears little resemblance to the F-51... the belly scoop is gone, the fuselage is extended, much in the fashion that the F-82 extended it, the tail group is changed, and it has a long turboprop in the nose instead of the Packard Merlin (or whatever). Building an Enforcer is not just simply the case of bolting a turboprop to the front end, as the lobbyists seemed to convince Congress of, ten years back or so. And it's not like the USAF has a vast supply of Mustang spares that need to be used up... Congress mandated that the USAF evaluate the Enforcer as a "Low Cost" alternative to the A-10 Thunderbolt II. Granted, a low cost attack plane MIGHT be useful in wartime (assuming you can get low-cost pilots to fly them) but instead of trying to develop essentially a "new" airplane, why not look to the assets the USAF already has? There are probably HUNDREDS of A-1 Skyraiders in the desert at D-M AFB. The spAD does not have to be converted to an attack configuration, nor do airframes have to be bought back from private owners (who are not likely willing to sell). If they want to bolt a turboprop on soemthing, it seems to be easier to unbolt a R-2880 (or whatever) that has all it's accessories attached, than to pull the radiator and reskin the aft fuselage of the '51. Do you realize that the technical issues regarding defence are in the hands of a bunch of lawyers? Ron Wanttaja (ssc-vax!wanttaja) Did'ja hear the Russians are putting Klimov Turboprops in IL-2 Sturmoviks? Talk about an arms race!