Ex USAF P-51D-25-NA serial number 44-73422 served with USAAF 338th AAFBU in 1945. After WWII, it was delivered to the Canada Joint Air Training Centre ( C.J.A.T.C.) at RCAF Rivers, Manitoba in February 1951 as part of a 150 P-51D purchase deal by the Canadian government from US surplus. Designated as a Tactical Fighter TF-51D MkIV, this Mustang was given the serial number 9287 and coded OU*287.
RCAF Rivers was No. 1 Air Navigation School, and No. 1 Central Navigation School which trained Canadian Army pilots, and pilots for the Royal Air Force. Both schools were part of No. 2 Training Command RCAF, which was one of the 4 commands responsible for administration of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP). Other post-war units stationed at Rivers included the Canadian Parachute Training Centre, the Army Aviation Tactical Training School, the Joint Air Photo Interpretation School, the Basic Helicopter Training Unit, and the Army Air Tactical Training School (AATTS).
OU*287 also went on to serve time with No. 420 Squadron (Auxiliary) at RCAF Station, Crumlin (London), Ontario. This Mustang was finally struck of charge in December 1956 as the RCAF began to phase out the Mustangs in favour of the new Sabre and Vampire jets. It was eventually sold on the civillian market being registered as both N6401D and N10539, and in 1969 was sold to the El Salvadorean Air Force. After a few years, this Mustang MkIV was repatriated to the US and last reported as N103TL with Executive Airmotive of Miami, Florida. This registration was cancelled in 2006.
https://www.mustangsmustangs.net/p-51/survivors/serial/44-73422
Sources:
RCAF Mustang serials 9251 - 9300
This livery repaint is for Aeroplane Heaven's P-51D for MSFS. The model can be purchased here
For more information about the P-51D Mustangs of the Royal Canadian Air Force please enjoy this read. You may also enjoy this read about the salvage of RCAF MkIV Mustangs from Carberry Field, Manitoba.
This livery was hand created one-click-at-a-time using GIMP 2.10 and finely detailed using ModelXConverter. A huge thank you to the creators and contributors of these excellent freeware programs.
To install: Having AH P-51D for MSFS already installed, simply unzip to your Community folder, or where you keep your MSFS Addons.
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