aghart wrote:
The Mustang was produced to British specifications, as a fighter with the Spitfire's strength's and it's weakness's eradicated. Increased pilot visibility, increased fire power, improved range, it did what it was supposed to do. Was the P51 really that good? yes it was.
Very little of this is true. The visibility from the Mustang's cockpit was pretty poor, which led to the adoption of a modified Spitfire canopy (the Malcolm hood) on the P51B and P51C, and a modified Typhoon canopy on the P51D. Also, the Spitfire's firepower was significantly superior to the Mustang. The Spitfire's armament was roughly equivalent to eight 50-calibre Brownings, so twice the firepower of a P51B or C, and 30% superior to the P51D.
In terms of performance, the Spitfire was superior in climb, turn and roll, especially above 30,000 feet, where its low wing-loading and high power/weight ratio gave it a huge edge over all its contemporaries. The Mustang was faster in the dive, but (as noted above) it had an unpleasant tendency to shed its wings in the process. The Mustang also had a greater range, but its advantage has been overstated; in 1944, Spitfire XIV's based near Bristol were carrying out sweeps as far as the Swiss border - a distance of over 540 miles according to Google Earth.
Lastly, whenever German fighter pilots were asked to rank the Allied fighters, the Spitfire was always rated as the most-feared, with the P38 as the least-feared.