Quote:
Originally Posted by BE911SC
That's Mike Couches' P-51H Mustang that has been based at Hayward (CA) since the early 1960s. Couches is an aircraft broker and is famous in the Warbird community for buying dozens of P-51D Mustangs from the legendary surplus aircraft sales at McClellan AFB in Sacramento in the late 1950s. They'd tow the Mustangs off-base after purchase, get them flyable, and either fly them away from the dirt strip adjacent to McClellan or barge them down to the Bay Area on the Sacramento River. Couches also owned an F6F-5 Hellcat for decades and still owns an F8F-2 Bearcat that he bought in the early 1960s but rarely sees the light of day. The P-51H in this photo is one of two remaining in flyable condition and has looked just like that since about 1967 and was one of the first civilian-owned WWII "Warbirds" to be painted in an accurate military scheme. His son flies the H now, as well as a P-51D in NACA 1950s test aircraft colors with the NACA tall-tail modification.
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That is a cool history lesson. Nice to get additional intel on these classic ladies...
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