Testing
The high-altitude performance was a major advance over the Mustang I, with the Mustang X serial AM208 reaching 433 mph (697 km/h) at 22,000 ft (6,506 m) and AL975 tested at an absolute ceiling of 40,600 ft (12,375 m). Air Ministry official, Air Chief Marshal Sir W.R. Freeman (Chief Executive at the Ministry of Aircraft Production) lobbied vociferously for Merlin-powered Mustangs, insisting two of the five experimental Mustang Mk Xs be handed over to Carl Spaatz for trials and evaluation by the U.S. 8th Air Force in Britain. After sustained lobbying at the highest level, American production started in early 1943 of a North American-designed Mustang patterned after a P-51 Mustang prototype originally designated the XP-78 that utilized the Packard V-1650-3 Merlin engine replacing the Allison engine.
The pairing of the P-51 airframe and Merlin engine was later designated P-51B or P-51C (B (NA-102) being manufactured at Inglewood, California, and C (NA-103) at a new plant in Dallas, Texas, in operation by summer 1943). The RAF named these models Mustang Mk.III. In performance tests, the P-51B achieved 441 mph (710 km/h) at 25,000 ft (7,620 m) and subsequent extended range with the use of drop tanks enabled the Merlin-powered Mustang version to be introduced as a bomber escort.
Read more about this topic: Rolls-Royce Mustang Mk.X
Famous quotes containing the word testing:
“Bourbon’s the only drink. You can take all that champagne stuff and pour it down the English Channel. Well, why wait 80 years before you can drink the stuff? Great vineyards, huge barrels aging forever, poor little old monks running around testing it, just so some woman in Tulsa, Oklahoma can say it tickles her nose.”
—John Michael Hayes (b.1919)
“Now I see that going out into the testing ground of men it is the tongue and not the deed that wins the day.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 10:13.