The North American P-51 Mustang is one of the most iconic fighter aircraft ever made. Making their name during World War II, the P-51 proved to be a highly successful fighter that shocked the German Luftwaffe when it debuted as a bomber escort plane. In service through the Korean War, the Mustang officially ended it’s career with the United States militaries after the YAH-66 Comanche helicopter program was cancelled, where they had been used as chase planes.
Today, seeing a P-51 Mustang at an air show is a somewhat common affair, since many of the airframes were restored and are taken care of. Unfortunately for this particular Mustang, named Big Beautiful Doll, things did not work out as planned. Owned by Jeff Pino, the vintage warbird was preparing to fly to Casa Grande, Arizona for the Copper State Fly-In event. Nearby was a news helicopter from KTVK shooting footage for a promotion of the fly-in. After taking off from Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, Pino noticed an odd smell and asked the cameraman if they could check the landing gear, and when only one of the two main gears had deployed, Pino made the decision to belly-land the P-51 at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway. The landing was as perfect as a belly landing can be, and while there’s no doubt that the underside, prop and engine will require some serious inspections and repairs, this could have gone far worse.
sad too see that kind of landing, but I agree, it could have been a lot worse and the pilot was able to walk away. very good landing. hopefully it can be repaired and returned to service shortly.
those old war birds are tough
new prop and some buffing out and fixing whatever went wrong with the hydro and she will be good as new
absolutely PERFECT Text book belly landing
I used to know vets with 5000H of combat seat time that could’t pull that off
The hand crank backup must have failed too.
Some great flying there. Kept the nose up as long as possible & kept the prop strike damage to a minimum.
10/10 for that one.
he landed it and walked away. that’s all the good news there is. As soon as he crossed the threshold, he should have cut the power. Because the prop was still spinning when it hit the ground, the entire engine has to come apart and the crank removed to check it for cracks. If he’d have landed on the grass instead of the runway, there’d have been less damage. If the fire crews had foamed the runway, there’d have been less damage. He landed it, and walked away. That’s all the good news there is…and yeah, I know I’m repeating myself.