Aside from the beauty and performance o the aircraft, i am most impressed by the photography. It's rare that this type of recording can keep the subject in frame and focused 100% of the time. This is exceptional.

I was part of the team that originally built precious metal in 1987. The only thing "original P-51" on the whole airframe is the tail, from the rudder on back. To get the griffon motor to fit, the firewall was moved rearward by almost 2 feet to keep the airframe within the CG envelope. At one point in time, one of the original designers of the P-51 consulted with us during the build. The project manager for the build is still restoring and maintaining P-51s today.

Truly one of the best prop planes ever built not just for his power and speed but it's control and handling definitely decades ahead of its time

“You know what this propeller needs, another propeller”

The mighty Rolls Royce Griffon, one of the most powerfull V12 engines ever made.

man i love the stock ass p51D that rolls by in the background, kinda drives home how different these racing rigs are

I have flown P51 mustangs in the past. I find that there is no other plane like the P51. Its a bat out of hell. Love it. Charles

With the counter rotating props and that big RR Griffon engine... cranked up my speakers and the sweet sound of forced induction V12 made me cry tears of joy!! Love it... Bucket list trip is the Air Races to see these magnificent beasts in action!

Reminds me of the old Red Baron Flying Service P-51 that crashed with Steve Hinton at the controls, in 1979 at Reno. When we saw the fireball we figured he was a dead man. But he survived with a broken back, leg and ankle. they said his cockpit was almost a mile from the main wreckage.

Man, I love the narrow sleek canopy it really works with the lines of a Mustang. I have an unrelenting passion for prop planes, there is nothing like a low and fast prop buzzing past. That sound is like music to me.

I love this plane because it gives us a look at the last Spitfire that never was. In 1945 Supermarine developed a Spitfire with the Mustang lamina flow wing and a 2400hp Griffin engine with contra rotating props. Because it no longer had the iconic elliptical wing they renamed it the Supermarine Spiteful, only 17 were built and it never saw service as the jet age had arrived. However the power plant was used in the Shackleton bomber, I assume that is where this planes engine came from. So now we have an idea of how the ultimate Spitfire would have performed.

A real feat of engineering to see a 76 year old plane design still flying and viable in 2017.

Precious Metal Is the most beautiful aircraft .those counter-rotating props are incredible.

When I saw the thumbnail i thought I was looking at a RC plane...boy was I wrong. Absolutely beautiful plane and camera work!👊

The sound of the P-51 just gives me goosebumps!

That melody from those blades is impressive, I love this aircraft

PM is one of my favorite aircraft,...and OH the UNIQUE wail of that Griffon and contra-rotating props. AWESOMENESS on display.

This sound is one of my most favorite sounds in life!

the left to right to left to right head movement to stay aligned to runway for departure and landing...a work of art and patience

I have seen this video numerous times now. And the sound when this plane passes by gives me goosebumps - absolutely spectacular. Thank you for keeping these mashines going :-)

Must be nice not having to stomp heavily on the rudder when the power is applied .

That aircraft moves :) what a beautiful machine.

The P-51 is the scariest prop plane ever made. It's just a beast.

Beautiful! I had one take off right over me..i was at the end of the runway. So cool! Amazing sound and power!

I was on the old Red Baron team and there is nothing like the sound of the Griffon!

Fantastic, very nice color of the fuselage of the Precious Metul plane! Great takeoff then laps or tracks, maneuvering speed super video !! your demonstration was awesome, 440,383 MPH and second pass 438,032 MPH, congratulations the pilote to all who participated in this video. Thank you.

This is a real beast! Beautiful and fast. How great would be to have closer view of this miracle! Thanks

Double prop !!!! This speed, it's crazy !!!! 440 mph ?!?!? Wooaaaaaah !!!! 😳😳😳. I'm fan !!! 😍😍😍

Really nice to see this old warbird turned into a speed machine.

listen to her purr....best music I've heard on a video in a while. I flew my P51 so much I finally wore it out. So a friend of mine gave me his P51 - said he was not flying it much anymore....had moved on to jets. No, not the full scale.....an RC plane.

I was at the 1999 Air races when Miss Ashley II crashed on Saturday. She was a beautiful aircraft which was highly modified with Contra-rotating props and a Griffon engine. She had learjet wings. Cause of crash was the rear stabilizer (somewhat similar to the Ghost crash) came off and torque tore off the wings and the fuselage landed on an unoccupied Winnebago in an eastern community. Pilot never stood a chance.

It doesn't get any better than watching Mustangs and the old World War II Birds flying and listening to their engine.

That was awesome! Well done and thank you for sharing.

Going 700+kph is an all time high!

Wow! What a beautiful airplane and the performance is amazing. And also, Those 2 propellers spinning real fast looks kind of intimidating to me and the sound of the plane starting up also intimidating.

Counter rotating props also help to reduce what is known as the "P" effect as well when flying. That is the technical term to when a prop produces so much torque that it will make turning, taxing and taking off with the aircraft harder on one side than the other. As developers started to produce engines that produced more torque, the "P" effect really started to become a hindrance. So much so that you either needed special training in how to counter this effect, or something like a counter-rotating prop. Look at the Russian T-95 "Bear" Extremely powerful turboprops, with counter rotating propellers

Counter rotaing props on a mustang ??? Please fill me in !

Counterrotating props on a P51... that's pretty wild... and the sound is very interesting. thumbs up

I love the carbon clean out, lean out procedure to taxi parking cool down. What an amazing creature. 😍

With the introduction of the Griffon, R-R changed the firing order from that used in the Merlin. Quote from Wiki: "Merlin firing order: 1A, 6B, 4A, 3B, 2A, 5B, 6A, 1B, 3A, 4B, 5A, 2B ('A' being the right bank as viewed from the rear of the engine) Griffon firing order: 1A, 4B, 3A, 2B, 5A, 1B, 6A, 3B, 4A, 5B, 2A, 6B (changed from the Merlin to reduce stress on the crankshaft)" The Merlin has a musical hum that gives you goosebumps and makes your hair stand on end.. IMHO the Griffon doesn't sound quite as smooth.

Awesome plane... That doubled propeller looks absolutely CRAZY...

Wow, I never knew the P-51 could be configured for a counter rotating duo prop.

This thing brings beauty to a new level.

The Tu-95 Bear uses counter rotating props and I didn't know why that plane used CR props until I asked around which makes sense now....CR props are cool to see

Beautiful P-51D love the dual prop

That's one fast Mustang. It sure sounds incredible and the paint job is super.

I absolutely love the sound of Mustangs 😘

The next day an AT6 arrived. 2 seat trainer as some may know. We did hammer stalls and a couple loops, no problem. Such amazing power power

Yep, I thought so. No matter what a bunch of guys do, there's always this one guy. The guy that takes everything to a new level! That guy! In this bunch, this is that guy. Jezzz counter rotating prop on a P-51! Yeah thanks. Damn nice work.

I love precious metal to death. It's my favourite Mustang, and the only in the world with contra-rotational props.

I watched that plane run @ Reno years back, scary beast.

Is a very fine piece of technology with the modifications involved in the desing, but i prefer an original P-51D fighter plane, even today. She was a fantastic aircraft, with the Packard-Merlin engine and her frame line original, sorry my bad english, and greetings from Santa Rosa, La Pampa, Argentina.

Beautiful ,absolutely beautiful. Love the counter rotating props so no torque problems. I always wondered how the p51d would look if developed further. ( There was a design in the 80's that used small jets to boost speed but it was dropped) .p51 d has always been my " pin up" of ww2 fighters. Poetry in motion. Best regards.

What a truly amazing looking plane.

Qualifying time is near the current seaplane speed record set in 1935 by an S. M. 72 which also had counter rotating props

Looking at it sideways as in 1:47 there is a lot of down thrust on that engine installation. I like the prop tip design. If the trailing edge at the tips was slightly raked back, it would be even better. I designed water propellers and before I did formulate my design all I did was to look at sea creatures, like a shark, dolphins, whales, and also air creatures where all tails and fins at the tips have both their leading and trailing edges of wingtip feathers raked back. This video shows the tail of a whale and the evolution of those tips means less wingtip vortex formed. The orca, dolphin, most fast fish, the individual feathers at the tips of a wing......... they follow the same philosophy for a good reason. I always felt that the wing tip of the Hurricane and the Spitfire had the wrong design and in fact, the Spitfire had a wing tip stall. (After 1950 the rake back of the trailing edge of wings became clear!) The ME 109 and Mustang had better wingtip performance than the British planes and in fact, the Spitfire had its tips cut down for a good reason. The design of my propeller tips is now incorporated in all seagoing vessels and what I did 50 years ago has now become so popular as propeller revolutions increased. Perhaps one-day aircraft propellers will accentuate the rake back of the trailing edge at the tips. Perhaps Precious Metal would consider rounding off the leading edge of the Vertical and Horizontal stabilizers as they did the main wing tips and perhaps consider the design of the leading and trailing edges of the tail of a whale at all the tips that are handling the air at a slight angle of attack. Food for thought for some designers, eh! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fbWcmsujqLWufoU.html

running rough a little plugs or magneto , great sound great conversion , very intrieging contra -rotate props

Great video, good info that I didn't know and more to the point, Awesome Griffon sound! Thanks.

Has an Avro Shackleton RR Gryphon engine and contra-rotating props, just gorgeous

First time I've seen counter-rotators on a P-51. I believe Rare Bear runs them. Very nice sounds! -- I stand corrected, but I could have sworn rare bear ran them at one time in the past but I guess the memory is fading and I'm wrong. I do remember it had the largest prop I've ever seen on a single engine aircraft. There was a high-grade model of it on the corner of the bar at the Hilton Hotel in Reno. There was an aircraft that showed up every year. It did use a contra-rotating. Counter would be opposite direction of rotation I imagine.

The Shackleton prop is amazing. I wonder how this would have performed against the Axis planes in WW2 had they thought of it then.

Those contra-props give it a distinct sound.

wow double propellers. Amazing to see it fly 400 mph

A beautiful fighter, very interesting with the twin rotation prop’s

Totally cool machine. 440 mph average. Damn that’s quick !!

What a beautiful masterpiece!

That is a beautiful aircraft. The Mustang has got to be the best looking military plane ever built. A little bit nicer than my Cessna 150. Hey wait, my plane holds 2 people. Let's see that Mustang do that.

People, these birds were modified years ago and they are the last of the modified racers. Only a handful of them are modified now. A number have been returned to stock.

I was at the races that year. So it wasn't the fastest, but god damn it was one of the best sounding!Just another reason I love living a few miles from the Stead airport, and in such a quiet neighborhood. Except of course in the couple weeks around race time. I don't think anyone minds the extra noise.

That is an awesome looking and sounding Mustang. I would to visit Reno to see this

Beautiful. But in all honestey it looks less like a D model and more like a B or C with the cockpit arrangement, which makes sense. I read somewhere that the earlier models without the bubble canopy were often used with the highest quality fuel to run down V1's since they had less drag than the D model, which made them quite a bit faster.

luvly one of the most beautiful planes i have ever seen.

Wow, what a beautiful and magnificent aircraft.

That’s one sweet looking machine!

Prolly the nicest sounding aircraft of all time.

I am very proud to to say I flew a p51 in fort myers Florida for an hour. It wasn't cheap but I would love to do it again.

That the Rolls Royce griffon isn't it?

There is a supply of Griffon engines left from the Avro Shackleton maritime patrol aircraft. most probably came out of one of those.

I saw P51 in fly! But this modernized P51 with speed 800 km/h! Incredible!!! I must buy it!!

Bloody brilliant , your so lucky in the USA to have these aircraft flying and keep them flying in perfect harmony UK fan

Counter rotating props, Steve Hinton did it first in the Red Baron P-51 back in 1979..499 MPH world record...crashed it at the Reno Air races.

A millionaire hobby for sure. Imagine the fuel burn.

I like the counter rotaing props, imo it makes aircraft unique. its prob why i like the Tu-95 and the Ka-52

The greatest airplane ever built, with the exception of the A10, SR71, F18, the Wright Brothers first plane and the Wright B, and of course the B1, B2, and the b52. This one has the coolest sounding engine of them all though. The Space shuttle wins the coolest Glider award. GOOD LUCK in the coming race season... Fly Fast !

Griffon with Coaxial props...amazing

It has an almost jet-like sound to it when making the qualifying flight.

The back propeller has smaller diameter than the front one has. The blades seems to be a Rotol type, but it is different. The contra porp Griffon engined Spitfire has same prop diameters, cutted blade tips, the Shackleton also has similar contra-rotating props, so this one could be camde from the FR-47 Seafire.

Trying to come out of a high altitude power dive with that monster would be 'interesting'. A beautiful aircraft. Does it have an original Rolls-Royce engine from the period? Note: I read down further and got the answer to the engine question. Until they were fitted with all those horses, it's amazing how the U.S. thought it had limited use. Refitted with the RR, and with the addition of extra tanks for further range, it became the perfect escort fighter for long range bombing runs. One of the top fighters of the war.

I noticed counter rotating props really slow down the plane with good control on landings, that's a plus.

It's a beautiful plane,sounds awesome...😎

Pilots always said that the Merlin sounded like a dream when in good health and a bag of nails when it wasn't and the Griffon the opposite. May not have the beautiful tone of a Merlin but wow doesn't that despite that observation sound good to my ears.

The propellers are surprisingly quiet for coaxial, contra-rotating design. Soviet coaxials tend to be very loud!

Stunning aircraft!

That is the most awesome plane I've seen yet.

Worked on the mustang over five years during my military service Nothing better .. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

If this thing can do 700kph on the deck, what can it do at Altitude? they had planes with similar power doing 750Kph+ ready for war at alt, this thing is surely lighter due to weapons and radio gear removal/modernisation and more aerodynamic due to cockpit changes?

One gorgeous bird! Thank for sharing this!

This hellbeast makes THE most awesome sound (apart from the Sea Fury)

There is nothing in the sky more gorgeous than a P- 51......NOTHING

beautiful plane, it would be awesome if there was video footage from inside the aircraft as well