Pete Coleman Two Mustangs Mystery

[Dave Homewood]

So most people with an interest in warbirds in private hands in New Zealand know that Pete Coleman of Blenheim had a complete, runnable P-51D Mustang, NZ2427, and some bits and pieces of other ones. Here's NZ2427:

170098235_467912474359296_6566892016694147964_n by Dave Homewood, on Flickr

This photo above was given to John Saunders last week. The mystery is there was another photo with it, taken at the same place, same time, and look, Mustang NZ2422 was also sitting in Pete Colman's garden! They appear to be sitting nose to nose!

170332117_792769574985880_889414635117247984_n by Dave Homewood, on Flickr

Coleman purchased NZ2427 under the GSB Tender Number 5926 for 80 pounds in May 1958.

NZ2422 was sold by GSB Tender Number 5926 to ANSA Co, Nelson for 70 pounds in May 1958 and SUPPOSEDLY broken up in 1961.

So how did it end up here in Coleman's garden? And why has this never been mentioned before that he had two complete aircraft there?

[Mustang51]

Hmmmm...any possibility it still exists somewhere...(being slack and not searching my files)

[agalbraith]

Thanks for the message on this one Dave

I have these photo's as well on old Fuji film or something similar in colour. I thought it was pretty well documented Pete had both of these airframes. I do have notes somewhere on what happened to her, taken/broken apart from memory and I think parts ended up with JS, and some down at Wanaka with AFC. From memory '22' was a bitza as well.

I will see what I can find, the cogs are a bit rusty!

Cheers
Anthony

[agalbraith]

Just had a thought, when I was at JS looking at the wings in the long grass some years ago he said they were from Pete. When I was at the Smith residence after he passed I tried to get a decent look but couldnt confirm they were in actual fact '22's wings.

Brendon may be able to shed more light on them, I just didnt have time to look at everything LOL

[Dave Homewood]

I have never read that he had two complete airframes, as far as I can remember. I thought he only had bits of others alongside 27.

[agalbraith]

Yeah, I get the feeling there was a lot of stuff 'horse traded' back in the day in that region

[l29]

Didn't Pete chop a pair of mustang wings up to make them look spitfireish?

[ZacYates]

I gasped when I saw NZ2422. I wonder if there's a photo somewhere showing them together?

Fascinating.

[Dave Homewood]

Apr 10, 2021 19:51:13 GMT 12 agalbraith said:

Brendon may be able to shed more light on them

I sent Brendon the link when I first posted this thread, and he replied, "Dave - yes indeed a real mystery to be solved." So I don't think he can offer any more info.

[Dave Homewood]

Apr 10, 2021 20:35:49 GMT 12 l29 said:

Didn't Pete chop a pair of mustang wings up to make them look spitfireish?

Dave Lochead reckons he saw a Spitfire Mk. V once at Pete's place, but we have never really worked that out. The best theory was it might have been a replica. Could the wing chop have been for this perhaps?

[Dave Homewood]

Brendon Deere has just followed up with the following information.

"Dave just been thinking about it more. Along side the wings with NZ2423 (outer wings seem certain to have been from NZ2417) - there are two full length wing sections which have been stripped out - one a fair bit there still and the other not much more than the full length spar with bits attached to it. These may well be the wings shown on NZ2422 - maybe he bought the wings from ANAS and had the aircraft on his property to remove them? In the photo it doesn't look too stitched together though. One of the wings has been cut about and the story I was told was that Pete Coleman wanted to shape the wing to be more like a Spitfire. There is clear evidence on that wing section of shaping at the end using a metal cutter. I'll send a couple of photos tomorrow. We have recovered useful parts off both wing sections. One of the wings has the clear "NZ24XX" markings underneath so this narrows it down a lot as I think only four aircraft had the under wing serials. Both these wing sections were lying outside on the property in different places. The one cut to look like a Spitfire wing was just behind the house in the long grass by the yard.

You can see the two wing sections leaning up against the container. What was curious at the time was that these hadn't been cut off and were complete from one end to the other (at least in terms of the spars). This compares to the usually cut off wings. I'm not sure what state NZ2427 was in when it went to Maurice Hammond and whether these are the wings off it?



Dave bear in mind when this photo was taken we had already removed a lot of parts off the two wing sections. From the scrap sections that John Smith had we have already recovered nearly 500 identifiable parts."

[camtech]

I wonder if the complete wings could have been part of a "spares" package and sold separately from the aircraft? Just a thought.

[markrogers]

It's amazing. I wonder if there is enough material to build a second set of wings, or even a complete Mustang?

[hrvd1068]

When we picked up the harvard parts we helped move some mustang wings at johns smiths place that had an angle grinder run down the spars to make them look like spitfire wings . Non of us could believe anyone would even think of it let alone do it. We carried them up the driveway from the front of the house. They still had all the gun mounts and instructions printed on the ammo doors.

[agalbraith]

When packing/containerising Maurice's Mustang, there were obvious fuselage sections all carefully de-rivetted, with fin etc still being complete. I dont recall as such seeing an 'actual wing'. There were certainly lots of wing sections, one even having the roundel with US bars still on it (I have a photo somewhere of that). Pete also from memory got the fibreglass remains of the 'Spitfire' that got set alight by protesters. Maybe he tried to marry the 2 up?? I will have to dig up my old film photo's I took at the time and have a look.

I am still curious where '17's inner wing sections ended up after Fechney got '09's wings as replacements? We a pretty sure the outer wings he has are with Brendon now, but the inner wings?

Also 2427 had her wings torched off and Pete and Barry North got another wing (or separate unbolted units) and put them on 27 to taxy her around. So one of those wing inner sections is possibly off '27'?

This is great info coming together, be nice to find out what's left and where it ended up

Cheers Anthony

[Dave Homewood]

I just had a phone call from Don Subritzky. He used to visit Pete Coleman regularly and they were good mates. He said that Pete worked for the power board and as part of his job he had to regularly spend a week at a time at some substation in the hills near Motueka. While he was there he would take the opportunity to go visit lots of the orchardists who'd bought Mustang parts from ANSA, and he would buy up these old bits and take them home to Blenheim. This is how he got a lot of extra spares, buying them from the orchardists, he says.

Now Don reckons that the two Mustangs in the photos above are probably the same aircraft. He theorises this because he says Pete was fascinated by the squadron markings and he used to apparently take the aft fuselage off his complete aircraft and fit other sections he had to it.

Anthony says there were carefully de-riveted fuselage sections, so maybe this is possible?

It seems implausible but Don is sure it happened, and Pete Coleman was certainly the type who might attempt that given other stories about his innovation.

Apr 11, 2021 15:01:36 GMT 12 Dave Homewood said:

Apr 10, 2021 20:35:49 GMT 12 l29 said:

Didn't Pete chop a pair of mustang wings up to make them look spitfireish?

Dave Lochead reckons he saw a Spitfire Mk. V once at Pete's place, but we have never really worked that out. The best theory was it might have been a replica. Could the wing chop have been for this perhaps?

Don also said that the Mk. Vc Spitfire that was seen at Pete's was genuine. He knows because it was his. He loaned the RNZAF his Spitfire Vc when they were making the moulds for the fibreglass examples, he says, and it went to Woodbourne. When they were finished with it they did not immediately return the aircraft and it was actually stored at Pete Coleman's place for some while till Don got it back. Pete was using it as a guide to get the contours from so he could cut his Mustang wing to look like a Spitfire.

[johnnyfalcon]

In the first photo, 2427 has a yellow antenna and yellow propeller tips on the rear surface of each blade. In the second photo the antenna is silver and it appears there are no yellow tips on the rear blade surfaces that are visible, and is that the numeral "2" visible on the Port undercarriage door?

[Dave Homewood]

Yes, good spotting John. I am not confident in Don's story that it is the same aircraft with a different rear end.

[McFly]

From Anthony's other posts in 'The Mustang Pile' which may be useful..? - (rnzaf.proboards.com/thread/27547/mustang-pile)...

Mar 11, 2019 7:34:38 GMT 12 agalbraith said:

Here we go Don....cant have a grown man cry can we....this should brighten your day and be of good use to modelers

Mar 9, 2019 11:21:35 GMT 12 agalbraith said:

Well, here goes. Lets see what we can all come up with. I have quite a few but I will post more later on. This is just to kick start the thread.

Lets see what you got.... You have seen these already, but I am setting it up and will come back to it later on.













Cheers
Anthony

[Dave Homewood]

Well done Marty. I was just about to post these two which Mike Nicholls just sent to me.

Mike said in the email:
"Hi Dave,

I used to visit Pete Coleman often when I was first based at Woodbourne in the late 70's. In line with what Don has said, Pete told me he also had an arrangement with ANSA where he would bring large pieces of Mustang (Wings, Fuselages etc) back to his place and in exchange for cutting them into small bits, he could keep what he wanted. Pete had a mountain of Mustang parts with bits from most of the Mustangs that were scrapped.

As per the notes on the photo of NZ2427, Pete had the aircraft apart many times and would regularly mix up bits from different aircraft.

I think the attached photos came from Barry North ( but stand to be corrected). The comments on the photos were from Pete.

Feel free to post this on the forum.

Rgds

Mike"

NZ2422 @ Blenheim 001 by Dave Homewood, on Flickr

NZ2427 @ Blenheim 004 by Dave Homewood, on Flickr

So he did have two there together, one being cobbled together from parts of 16 aircraft. And he did regularly assemble and disassemble them as Don suggested. Amazing. I'd have loved to have interviewed him.