P-51 Tailwheel ??

[supercub]

During the 50's several Air National Guard Units had P-51's. I've seen numerous pictures over the years and most if not all had the tailwheels extended..........obviously, they were made non opertaional, as far as retraction. I've often wondered why they elected to keep them extended. Anyhone know why? Thanks.
Brian

[AirDOGGe]

Re: P-51 Tailwheel ??

I never heard of that before, so I did a little researching, and found this photo. It was the only one I could locate with extended tailwheels in flight:



F-51's from the 123 Fighter Group that trained at Atterbury Army Air Field during the summer of 1948.





As to why the wheel was down:

...a discussion on WIX, there were retraction problems postwar, so a simple fix was worked out to fix it down. The tailwheel couldn't be 'selected' separately from the main gear - it was just a cheap fixed done during this period.