Mark Peterson's N.A. P-51D Mustang "Hell-er Bust"

Mark Peterson is the owner and operator of this beautifully restored North American P-51D Mustang "Hell-er Bust" (S/N 44-72438), which is only available for film or specially arranged events.

The P-51 Mustang is almost universally regarded as the best fighter to emerge from World War II. Talk to Bob Hoover, Chuck Yeager, Bud Anderson or any of a hundred other military test pilots, and they’ll tell you the airplane was nothing less than a stroke of genius when it was introduced in 1942. Today, Mustangs are the most common type of warbird operating on the civil scene in the USA and may be viewed at virtually every airshow in the country.

The P-51 was designed and built by North American Aviation after the British government approached them to build P-40 Warhawks under license. North American believed they could design a better fighter, and the British government gave them 120 days to prove it. 102 days after the order was placed, the first Mustang was completed, flying for the first time on October 26, 1940. The prototype and subsequent P-51A utilized the Allison V-1710 liquid cooled engine. Lacking an effective engine supercharger, the Allison provided insufficient power for the high-altitude environment the P-51 was designed to operate in. By replacing the Allison engine with a Rolls-Royce V-1650 Merlin engine that had a two-stage supercharger, the necessary power and performance was gained. The Merlin engine, which was built in the U.S. under license by the Packard Motor Car Company, was installed in all further P-51 models from the “B” through the “H” versions.

The P-51 was the United States supreme air-superiority fighter in the European Theatre of Operations (ETO) during WWII. It served as a fighter-interceptor, Bomber-escort and fighter-bomber. With the powerful Merlin engine and droppable fuel tanks, the Mustang was able to penetrate deep into German territory where no previous Allied fighter had been able to go. The P-51 could escort bombers to all but the deepest targets inside Germany. With a fighter escort, fewer bombers were lost to the Luftwaffe’s fighters. Reichmarschall Hermann Goering, Supreme Commander of the Luftwaffe said “ When I saw Mustangs over Berlin. I knew the war was lost.”

The P-51 was considered by many to be the finest fighter that the U.S. produced and flew in WWII accounted for almost half the enemy aircraft destroyed in Europe by U.S. fighters. The Mustang was equipped with six .50 caliber machine guns and incorporated the advanced K-14 lead computing gun sight. The unmistakable scoop on the underside of the Mustang is the air inlet for the coolant radiator and oil cooler.

A combined total of over 15,500 Mustangs were produced. The greatest number of Mustangs were built as the “D” model, with over 8,000 built. Today less than 150 Mustangs remain flyable or restorable to flying condition.

Mark's Mustang was originally assigned to the 8th Air Force in Britain and after the war was one of a large number of P-51Ds sold to Sweden for operations with that country's Flygvapnet. It remained in service until 1952 and was then sold to the Dominican Republic for service with the Fuerza Aerea Dominicana where the type would establish a record for longevity serving some 36 years as an operational fighter.

This mustang returned to the United States in 1984 where it went through many owners and a complete rebuild before being painted in the scheme of the fourth-ranking 352nd fighter group ace Ed Heller's "Hell-er Bust" with 22 victories.

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