Miss America (Air)

Sitting on the ramp at Reno..looking pretty

Beautiful plane but I much prefer these old gals in their military liveries

Agree, nice shot and agree it is an abomination paint scheme as well!

The military scheme is so played out, everyone does it... By the same token, all hot rods should be converted back to factory specs, because the paint schemes are abominations. Oh well. I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinions.

If you think the paint jobs are bad, I'd hate to hear your thoughts on the clipped wings, revised canopies, and hot rodded engines in the race planes. ...and the counter-rotating props on P-51D "Precious Metal"

Nice shot despite shooting at noon. Unfortunately I wasnt checking my histogram and came home with nice blown whites on Miss America and a mess of Precious Metal

Thanks....i was just happy to be "shooting in sunlight" given our wet summer followed by forest fires causing milky skies.

. . . nice capture of an awesome paint scheme on an awesome Mustang !!

Desertraptor wrote in post #13157065
Beautiful plane but I much prefer these old gals in their military liveries

Nice shot, and the poster above could not be more wrong if he tried. The finest looking Mustang in the world is Strega, hands down, no questions asked.

Give me my Mustangs with chopped wings, turtle decks, race canopies, and race Merlins!!!

adamsti wrote in post #13160854
Nice shot, and the poster above could not be more wrong if he tried. The finest looking Mustang in the world is Strega, hands down, no questions asked.

Give me my Mustangs with chopped wings, turtle decks, race canopies, and race Merlins!!!

+1

Chopped, clipped, modded, stock, bare skin or "Sparky" paint job, they're all beautiful. To each his own...

Fantastic pic of Miss America

I had a plastic model of a P51D as a kid, learned a lot of WW2 history because of it. I love America and love the combination above as a nice artistic blending of separate but related objects I love. I would never see this if not for the photo above. Thank you!

Wow, a battle over the color of a "skin"....how poetic. I Chopped, colors, body parts or not...."can't we just all get along" I'm old school (hate that term) but give me a P-51 that looks like the day it came out of the factory...regardless of paint. I still prefer the '55 Corvette over all the chops and mods they've done to it since. And I meant it when I said "give me a P-51" Anyone?

If they were all identical what fun would it be photographing them? We wouldn't know one from any of the countless others. I like what I see & I like the photo of it.

Lovely shot, I don't mind the scheme as there are enough P-51's around that it doesn't really matter if a few get painted up like that.

It is kinda funny the discussion of paint jobs should come up. Just this year I was walking around the pits and for the first time I turned to my wife and told her that I think I am actually learning to appreciate air-racing paint jobs. I've always been staunchly on the "military paint on military airplanes" side. This year though I realized that most of the air racers have so much more history as air racers than military aircraft. It would be tragic not to recognize and celebrate that history.

Using the Miss America example, from Miss America's unofficial website here we see that this particular P-51 was in military service from 1944-1956, 12 years. It has been painted as Miss America since 1969 (42 years!) and racing even longer (since 1963).

dtw757 wrote in post #13161364
Wow, a battle over the color of a "skin"....how poetic. I Chopped, colors, body parts or not...."can't we just all get along" I'm old school (hate that term) but give me a P-51 that looks like the day it came out of the factory...regardless of paint. I still prefer the '55 Corvette over all the chops and mods they've done to it since. And I meant it when I said "give me a P-51" Anyone?

Got me Apparently I'm not allowed to like a particular scheme over another. To me it's like buying a yellow Ferarri or Ducati. Am I not allowed my opinion?
And YES the P51 is still my preferred warbird even if it was buitl from British specs

rammsteinmatt wrote in post #13157802
By the same token, all hot rods should be converted back to factory specs, because the paint schemes are abominations. Oh well. I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinions.

I don't care what they do to them as long as they take the time & spend the money to keep them rust free. Except for Rat Rods, of course.