speedbrake,
The inner doors are a necessary feature for scale competition-a class this plane is not qualified for. My first TF GS P 51 B was to be an attempt to get a plane into the higher levels of scale competition. I spent months working on these doors and the tail wheel retract and finally got it all working. When flying I found that the doors could not be seen operating in flight unless you did a really slow speed pass at 15-20 feet and timed the retract operation exactly right. This to me is not scale operation. I flew in a full scale P 51 B recently and was really interested in exactly how the pilot did everything and when he did it. The gear were retracted as soon as the wheels lifted and were done with indicator lights coming on during the steep climb necessary to limit airspeed to a safe gear cycle speed. The doors were closed during the first turn. The gear were lowered during the turn to the base leg and were down and locked before he leveled the wings on final approach. My two friends each took videos as long as the plane was in sight of the airport, they were standing several hundred feet apart during the tale off and landing. When I reviewed these videos I was disappointed that the only hint of retraction on any of the video was the main gear doors dropping down as the wheels broke ground and I could just see the left gear leg start up in one video as the turn out began at less than 50 feet altitude. I had counted seconds at liftoff and felt the 3 gears lock up at about 3 seconds later.
Going back to my "scale P 51 B" I was dismayed to find that this model was so far from true scale it would have no chance in scale competition, only stand off scale. My natural decision was to forgo the scale details that could not be seen when flying my models. I have seen lots of warbirds with all the equipment working more or less and my hat is off to any modeler who wants to do it all.
As for myself, I want to fly as much as possible and the spectators who see my planes fly always like what they see and never notice what is not there.
This H 9 P 51 is the closest to scale outline of any kit or ARF that is available. It is true that there are kits that can be scaled out but the detail is usually not on the plans-it is up to the builder to detail it. If an owner of this model wanted to make it look like scale he would have to discard a lot of the scale detail that comes with the plane and do it himself. It would not qualify as scale in the highest classes of scale competition having started as an ARF.
In my opinion it leads the pack in standoff scale and is worth the effort needed to get it in the air.