Whilst the P51’s radiator arrangement deserves praise, don’t fall for the hype. Having the radiators in the wings ala Mosquito is more efficient, which is why several P51 racers had their radiators moved to their redundant wing gun locations
Could you cite the particular P-51's that have the radiators in the wings, just not aware of them is why I ask. The only one I'm aware of to dispense with the original P-51 set up is the one in the link, a heat exchanger mounted inside a tank containing a mixture of water and methanol. The hot coolant and oil are pumped thru the heat exchanger where the heat is transferred to the water/methanol which then boils and vents overboard. The tank is inside the aircraft, and no air is being diverted, so all this is done without any additional drag being produced.
http://airpigz.squarespace.com/blog/...t-reno-in.html
Re the Mosquito being more efficient than the P-51 I would have thought looking at the two that it would not be the case, was the use of the stagnation pressure in front of the airfoil on the Mosquito rather than the parasitic hanging of a scoop on P-51 that more beneficial? Lack of expansion ahead of the Mosquito radiator points to a lack of dwell time to me, greater airflow through the matrix, higher drag, lower exit temperature. Be interested in any direction to technical papers addressing the issue. As with all engineering the designer makes trade offs, but it's interesting why they come to the solutions they do,
