RE: New Sig P-51B 90-100 size??
Jmohn, I also prefer the razorback Thunderbolt to the bubble version and I've flown just a couple of P40s but both flew really well. The design seems to lend itself to a really nice flying model.
I am too slow a builder to do one of every airplane I like, so I pick my absolute favorites to work on and then vicariously enjoy watching the ones others build and bring to the field!
Merlin, I liked what you wrote about the Malcolm hooded B/C version's dogfighting abilities, and there is some strong support for that point of view. Kit Carson of the 357th FG said in his book, "Persue and Destroy" that he preferred the "B" for the very reasons you mentioned and Lee Archer of the famous Tuskegee Airmen hung on to his "C" until his commander, Col. Benjamin O. Davis, ordered him to get rid of it. The Tuskegee Airmen in the 15th Air Force in Italy did not even have access to the Malcolm hoods and Archer still liked the C better. Both Archer and Carson felt the B/C was a more stable gun platform and Carson also pointed out that four 50's was quite adequate for destroying an enemy aircraft and if you couldn't hit him with 4 guns, 6 wouldn't make your aim any better.
One additional snippet about the cockpit visibility problem came in a "pilot report" in one of the popular full-size aviation mags some years ago when the writer, who had time in P51D's, had an opportunity to fly one of the rare B's that had recently been restored to flying condition. He said the seat was about 6" lower than in a D making the viz even worse than just the obstruction from the small windows and large framing made it. A seat cushion would not help either, since his head almost touched the top of the canopy anyway. I don't know if that 6" dimension was an actual measurement or if that was just his off-the-cuff impression, but I'm sure it's true that the seat was noticably lower. The original design team was striving for minimal frontal area in keeping with their design goals of maximum efficiency.
There were some mysterious fatal crashes of some of the early D models to arrive in-theater that turned out to be caused by a bug related to the revised wing design. Once found, it was promptly corrected. There are a number of subtle differences between the B and the D besides the obvious ones of the canopy and rear fuselage; the wing leading edge extensions (crank), and the gear doors, for example. It seems to me that the wing changes must have been related to an increase in the thickness of the airfoil among other things, in order to allow the guns to be mounted upright instead of canted like in the B/C wing. I never came across a mention of a different airfoil, yet NAA must have had to change it for the guns.
BTW, most of the folks reading this thread probably know this already, but just in case any missed this item, the P51B and P51C were really the same airplane, built to the same spec; they were given the different sub-variant designations only based on where they were built, the B at the Inglewood, Ca plant and the C at the Dallas Tx plant. About the only reliable way to tell a B from a C is by the serial number. Yes, there were some slight variations in the published performance data (speeds, etc.) as each version went through its own test flight program but probably no more difference than you would expect from individual examples coming off the same assembly line.