Civil Decals for the Civilized
23-year old Chuck Lyford flew this all-white P-51D-25 in the 1964 Harold’s Club Transcontinental Trophy Dash from St. Petersburg / Clearwater, Florida to Reno Nevada. After leading the entire race, a serious of events at the end of the race conspired to have Chuck finish 2nd out of the eight P-51s that started the race. Chuck’s P-51 was unique as he added 150 gallon Skyraider drop tanks to extend his range. Chuck later raced the “Bardahl Special” at Reno, without the drop tanks of course.
It is not often you get to see a scale model next to the real deal, but David Horn has accomplished this feat. David built a 1:48 scale version of “Miracle Maker” and was able to bring it out to the real “Miracle Maker” and its owner Ike Enns. Click on the photo to be linked to larger versions. Thanks got to both David Horn and owner Ike Enns for making this possible. We also have a gallery of detail photos of “Miracle Maker” and David’s build HERE.
Raced at Reno in 1964 and possibly later years, “Mr Choppers” was owned by C.E. Crosby of Bellingham, WA. 44-74602 is now owned by Jack Hovey of Ione, CA and is now painted in a desert sand / spinach camo scheme. This set is for the stock appearing aqua-blue P-51 from times past.
Owned by Ike Enns and based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, “Miracle Maker” raced at Reno between 1998 and 2005. This mostly stock appearing Mustang even retains the .50 cal gun ports on the wings. 
Look for a full set of walk around photos as well as his model build in 1:48 scale from David Horn, just click on the model or prototype photos.
“Miracle Maker” is available in 1:48, 1:72, 1:32 and 1:144 scales. 
Nice build of the Hasegawa P-51 in 1:72 scale by Paul Janicki. Paul used the original Hasegawa kit from the 1970’s. He removed the guns and filled the empty shell chutes on the wing undersides, then filled and smoothed over the rather coarse fabric rudder and elevators. Not having any views of the cockpit, he left that to imagination and presumed it would have been made into a two seater but decided to create a ‘blanking plate behind the pilot seat and removed the head rest from that. The brown paint used was by Life-Color French Chocolat acrylic glossed this with several light coats of Johnson’s Klear (‘Future).
The cockpit is a bit hypothetical, but without details of the many two-seat P-51 conversions, the area was a bit of guesswork. Can anyone supply any good details and/or photos of a two-seat Mustang conversion?
Mr. Hoover’s famous words “Gentlemen, You Have a Race” were uttered from this P-51 for many years at the National Air Races in Reno, Nevada. Sponsored by North American Aviation, later known as Rockwell, this colorful P-51 was owned and flown by the “Pilot’s Pilot” R.A. “Bob” Hoover.
This set will letter one P-51 in the various versions of the Rockwell era markings on Mr. Hoover’s P-51D, and is available in 1:144, 1:24, 1:32, 1:48 and 1:72 scales.