No other aircraft of WWII could fly as high, go as far, or fight as hard as the famed Mustang. Piloted by a record 281 Aces, this agile and ferocious dogfighter tallied more kills than any other Allied airplane. As the bombers of the Eighth Air Force fought their way deep into Hitler's Germany, it was the Mustang that cleared the skies of Luftwaffe fighters. The powerful Rolls-Royce Merlin engine gave the Mustang a speed of 445 mph. Re-styled with an aerodynamic bubble canopy for greater visibility, and outfitted with 6 fast-firing .50 caliber machine guns, the P-51 became the best fighter of the war.

The P-51K Mustang was essentially a P-51D with a different propeller. With war production at max capacity in Inglewood, NAA added P-51 production at their Dallas Texas plant starting with the P-51B. The new designation of the B models built in Dallas was P-51C.

When the P-51D began production, once again the Dallas plant was needed. Unlike the B models, when the D models were built in Dallas, their designation of "D" was kept. They were identified as built from the Dallas plant with the "NT" suffix. So a -5 block of a D model Mustang built in Dallas would be a P-51D-5NT. These were identical to a P-51D-5NA, built in Inglewood, Ca.

Pictured here is a 1:48 scale replica of a USAAF North American P-51D Mustang fighter that was piloted by Major Leonard Carson and nicknamed "Nooky Booky IV", which was attached to the 362nd Fighter Squadron, 357th Fighter Group, then deployed to Europe during 1944. Sold Out!

Dimensions:
Wingspan: 8-1/2-inches
Length: 7-1/2-inches

Release Date: November 2020

Historical Account: "Kit" - Top scorer of the 357th Fighter Group with 18.5 aerial victories plus 3.5 more by strafing was Leonard "Kit" Carson. Scoring all of his kills in a single tour with the 362nd Fighter Squadron and using five Mustangs all called "Nooky Booky," he in fact achieved most of his tally in the last six months of the war in his fourth Mustang, a P-51K called "Nooky Booky IV."

The 162nd Tactical Fighter Squadron was constituted as the 362nd Fighter Squadron on December 1st, 1942, at Hamilton Field, California. The squadron was assigned to the 357th Fighter Group and went to war flying over the skies of Europe as part of the 8th Air Force, achieving a highly successful war record.

Following World War II, the 362nd was deactivated on August 20th, 1946, and re-designated as the 162nd Fighter Squadron, single engine (SE) on August 21st, 1946. The 162nd was federally recognized on November 2nd, 1947, at Dayton Municipal Airport, Vandalia, Ohio. The unit flew a variety of propeller-driven aircraft with the North American F-51D and F-51H being its primary fighters.