24 | Pilot April 2015 http://www.pilotweb.aeroand fight in it. Scroll forward seven years
and here I am researching the sequel, where
the character returns to the fight in a P-51.
If you want the best Mustang training
in the world there’s only one place:
Kissimmee, Florida, home of Stallion 51
Corps, Crazy Horse 1, Crazy Horse 2,
The Little Witch, and Lee Lauderback.
Lee has logged an astonishing 9,000 hours
on Mustangs, making him the highest-
hours P-51 pilot in history−and he still
loves the aeroplane. That alone says quite
a lot about how special this machine is.
Alongside Lee are an impressive line-up:
Steve ‘Mad Dog’ Larmore (also a mechanic
and T-6 guru), John Posson (who flies in
the Patriots L39 display team), and John
Black (F-15 pilot), all of whom were in
attendance during the ten days I spent at
Stallion 51.
Predictably, the operation has gathered a
serious collection of professional and
military flight instructors. Lee’s brothers
Peter and Richard look after the
maintenance. Another brother, John, is in
the office, and en masse the staff make
this the most professional flight school I
have ever seen. Even the government and
US military use it.
Two months before I arrived, I’d
received a parcel in the post consisting of
an in-depth questionnaire on my previous
flying experience, the inevitable waivers,
checklists and a hard-arsed exam which
posed questions that had me trawling the
internet for several weeks−believe me, I
haven’t worked so hard since my last
commercial type rating course on a BAe- But look at it this way: if the
instructor asks you what is the emergency
drill for an electrical failure and you say
“umm...” you’ve already wasted five
dollars−yes folks; it works out about a
dollar per second in the air, or $3,450 per
hour on the Hobbs meter, if you prefer.
And that’s relatively cheap. Expect to pay
at least twice as much outside the USA. (I
had a conversation with a very famous
P-51 owner in the UK and he said he
Beyond the PPL | Mustang Conversion
A gathering of Mustangs at Stallion 51’s
Kissimmee basePHOTO: PAUL BOWEN
PHOTO: KT BUDDE-JONES