Yes, I tried at 100-50- and 25. The issues with the P-51 with full tanks are something of a given. . . this aircraft was the one that changed the way we could engage the target. . . no other fighter/pursuit aircraft of the era was able to fly as far, and before its creation, our bombers were all alone as they approached their target because nothing could escort it and still have enough fuel to get home.Taking an extrememly thin airfoil (optimized for speed and alt), adding lotsa power and weight, making it have the same combat radius as a bomber was asking alot of an aircraft that you wanted to be a dogfighter. The P-51 was quite capable of this though. . . asking it to get wheels up, prepared for a maximum endurance sortie and engage immediately was not really the idea, and as such most P-51s carried low fuel in the centerline tank, along with drop tanks to mitigate this issue if the sortie required the ability to fight right after departure, which was rare, as there were other aircraft designed for this role which were sitting on the ground unable to really act in a supporting way for the long range bomber raids that became standard fare towards the end of WWII.The P-51 could cruise at 41,900 feet (12,772 meters), fly 1,300 miles on internal fuel and up to 2400 miles with full droptanks. . . to put these values into perspective, the Bf-109 could fly 420 miles. Maybe its time to go for a name change. . . .TX-Merlin perhaps?
