The F-82 Twin Mustang Is An Unbelievable And Extremely Uncommon Night time Fighter Airplane

Regardless of trying like two P-51 Mustangs welded collectively, in actuality, it was a completely new design, far faraway from earlier twin increase craft (i.e., P-38 Lighting). Primarily, it required designing a airplane the place each pilots have been offset from the plane’s middle line.

Varied variations of the P-82 might be outfitted with an array of various munitions and armaments, together with gun pods full of as many as fourteen .50 caliber Browning having machine weapons. Underwing hardpoints allowed the airplane to hold hundreds of kilos of bombs, Excessive Velocity Plane and air-to-surface rockets, and even exterior gasoline tanks to additional its vary. One sortie would have it flying as a long-range escort or reconnaissance airplane, whereas the subsequent as an assault bomber, rocket fighter, or interceptor.

Satirically, the Twin Mustang by no means noticed any precise World Warfare II fight as a result of North American Aviation could not ship any planes till early 1946, when the battle was already over. Nevertheless, its adaptability let it flourish in the course of the Korean Warfare and have become the primary American airplane to shoot down North Korean plane — three to be actual — on June 27, 1950.

As an illustration, as a substitute of a co-pilot or navigator, the F and G variations carried a radar operator. In actual fact, Air Protection Command put radar gear into the F-82Gs and commenced utilizing them as evening fighters as a substitute of the retiring Northrop P-61 Black Widow.

Whereas 500 of the P-82s have been ordered, North American solely made about 250. The P-82 Twin Mustang was the final American piston-engine and propeller-driven fighter bought by the Air Pressure.