Backstory- A local heavy-hitter executive travels in style while on business. Instead of a private jet, limo, sedan or even commercial flight, he whips around in his P-51. Whenever he's home, he keeps it at our local municipal airport. This is a small airport, in my small hometown of Taylor, TX. Story- I'm at my buddy Billy's place (Thirsty Thursday at Speedy's!!!) taking some pictures of his Austin-Bantam build to update his s****book. My buddy Barrett shows up and helps me take a few shots. Out of nowhere he said "hey, let's sneak into the airport and take some pics of that P-51 while you have your camera out. Better yet, you're in the '55, so lets park that ***** in front of the plane and take some REAL pictures!". So we did! We found an open gate, hauled *** to the plane, power parked it and snapped away. This thing is intimidating. It definitely has a presence that can't be described. Anyway, I see a couple dudes in a hangar across the way staring at us. I said "...dude, we better hurry. Those guys are about to come over here." No sooner than I said that I hear Pink Floyd crank WAAAAAY up and a one of them tilts his head back for a man chug of brew. Cool. I told Barrett "lets go over there and thank those dudes for not running us off". I pull up to the hangar, thank them, and was immediately offered a beer. Two hours p*** by as we get a tour of a private jet, listen in on some SCARY aviation stories, take a few more pics and have just a good 'ol time. You talk about spontaneous! On our way back to Billy's Barrett said "Think about this, how many people have gone to a municipal airport on a Thursday evening to take some pictures of their original '55 in front of a battle tested P-51 only to end up getting drunk with the guys that were supposed to run you off?" Heres a few shots-
WOW!!! That would sure make my day. Although it might be slightly better if the owner of the P-51 showed up and begged to take me for a ride Frank
Awesome pictures!!! And a hell of a story. I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but the P-51 was a single seater. So a ride would be kinda tough.....lol The trainer's were 2 seaters, but the actual fighter version was only 1.
Allways cool to get a photo of your car in front of a War Bird...! We had "prayer Meetings" at our hanger every Tuesday night... a little early in the week for drinking...... uh..... praying but we would have a full house...!
Hey!----Thats neat!----Similiar experience 5 years ago at small airport near here, couldn't resist asking P-51 owner to pose for a qwick pix!-------Don
I LOVE living near a small airport. Lots of cool small plane traffic, plus there's a couple guys who have a couple old war birds. On Mother's Day 2 flew over wing tip to wing tip at about 1500ft, way too cool.
This WAS a one seated fighter, he removed the fuel cell and added a rear seat. It's more like a high chair though. My 265 pound *** wouldn't fit. His bombshell girlfriend does though. that's a whole other story.
I guess it should be funny how stripper heels tend to slip while standing on top of the wing, but humor is quickly overshadowed by her first step into the ****pit. Sorry, no pics of her, but heres a few more from that day.
Great pics, thanks for posting. Kind of odd but a P-51 flew over our shop today. The Collings Foundation is having a "battle for the airstrip" this coming weekend with tanks, soldiers, halftracks, planes etc. He's got quite a collection of cars (cl***ics,sprints,midgets and race cars plus planes all housed in a huge hanger. Pretty cool stuff !!! Google Collings Foundation for info...Stow Ma.
Nice! That's cool that it happened to have ANG markings, so it won't look out of place next to a 1955 chevy too.
Two thumbs up on that one! Air National Guard units had 'Stangs well into the '50s until older first-generation jets like the F-86D Sabre Dog dropped down in the heirarchy when replaced by Century-series airframes. So that photo could certainly have been staged as though it was taken in the fall of '55.
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