A thing of beauty

‘No enemy plane will fly over the Reich Territory”-Goering

I recently visited the RAF museum in Hendon, it was full of amazing aircraft and served spam sandwiches with Spitfire beer. The most beautiful thing that i saw there was a P51 Mustang. It stood there gleaming in the sunlight and any views on war death and destruction could not cloud its sheer gorgeous design.

This one was flown by Captain Donald Emerson and displays seven Nazi kills on its side.

Partly designed to a British fighter requirement, the North American Mustang's original Allison engine gave it a disappointing performance. Fitted with a Rolls Royce-designed US Packard Merlin the P-51 achieved a new lease of life and flew on to be a war-winner, being one of the few daylight single seater fighters with the range and firepower to escort US bombers on daylight bombing raids into Germany.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmavI2dxKs4

Deadly but beautiful.