Second Out Of the Gate

In this second installment of our series on the P-51 we bring you a couple'a views of the first production Mustang I, AG345. She made her maiden flight on April 23rd, 1941 and differed externally only slightly from the prototype, most noticeably in the area of the redesigned windscreen. Though this ship was the first built for the Royal Air Force, she was never delivered to the Brits. North American retained this airframe at Inglewood for testing and development to work the bugs out.

Here we see AG345 in her original configuration, with the short carburetor intake, shortly  after completion.

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Eventually AG345 was decked out with an RAF camouflage scheme.

Note the lengthened carburetor intake which became the standard for all Allison-powered Mustangs.

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