@ Chantilly, VA
August 2018
Displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is “Excalibur III”, a record-setting P-51 Mustang. On May 29, 1951, Capt. Charles F. Blair flew “Excalibur III” from Norway across the North Pole to Alaska in a record-setting 10½ hours, earning the Harmon International Trophy as a result. Four months earlier, he had flown Excalibur III from New York to London in less than 8 hours, breaking the existing mark by over an hour. Excalibur III first belonged to famed aviator A. Paul Mantz, who won the 1946 and 1947 Bendix air races and set a transcontinental speed record in 1947 when the airplane was named “Blaze of Noon”. Blair purchased the Mustang from Mantz in 1949 and renamed it Excalibur III, after the Sikorsky VS-44 flying boat he flew for American Export Airlines. In 1952, Pan American World Airways donated Excalibur III to the Smithsonian Institution. Fuji X-E2s w/18-55mm.
