'Ultimate Homebuilt' Warbird Coming to Oshkosh
  

Beck in his homebuilt Mustang with Bob Odegaard in his well-known Corsair during the filming of Thunder Over Reno.

EAA member Gerry Beck of Tri-State Aviation in Wahpeton, North Dakota, will fly his P-51A Mustang to Oshkosh and have it on display during EAA AirVenture. There are many P-51s at AirVenture every year and they're all magnificent. But what makes Beck's Mustang even more special is the fact that it's a homebuilt; he built it from scratch.

"It's the ultimate homebuilt, built right off the North American plans," Beck said earlier this week as he made preparations to fly the airplane east. Several years ago he was working on the restoration of the Confederate Air Force-Minnesota Wing's Red Tail Project, a "C" model P-51, and got the initial itch to build one from scratch. So Beck duplicated the tooling used for the Red Tail project to use on his own. He also owned an Allison-powered P-40 and used its engine to power his P-51.

Over the years Gerry trucked parts and pieces of his airplane to Oshkosh to give people an annual progress report. During his last display in the Warbirds area two years ago he featured the P-51A fuselage on a specially designed trailer. Once the wings were mated to the fuselage, however, the display became too big to transport and the project remained in North Dakota.

This year it's completed and flying and will be on display at AirVenture's main aircraft showcase, AeroShell Square.

Beck's timeline was always based on bringing the airplane to Oshkosh this year, but he had a little extra incentive when the producers of the movie, Thunder Over Reno, asked to use his aircraft in their film, which is set for release next summer.

That moved up the completion date some two months - the airplane was finished a week before shooting started, and Beck quickly flew the required 40 hours off during that time, as required for Experimental Amateur-built certification. They just finished shooting last month, he said.

For that reason, the aircraft will appear with its Hollywood-inspired racing paint scheme with the name, Precious Metal, affixed to the nose.