[Buster_Dee]

Funny story. A friend was a P51 candidate in WW2 attending one of those experimental, abbreviated programs (don't recall which). He said several students never got past taxiing, crashing and burning to death instead (so, yes, torque, etc was brutal). He was relieved when the USAAF decided it could make enough pilots without this school, and closed it. He then became a combat engineer, and made one of the follow-up landings on D-Day. He still considered himself luckier than being in half-baked pilot training. Several years after his service, the Army grilled him for turning in a different serial-numbered weapon than he was issued. He wrote back that he had misplaced his in the surf while "distracted" on D-Day and, having found a trooper who could no longer use his, borrowed it. The Army returned an apology and thanked him for his service.

I knew him from work. The Military had contracted a P-51 to show their pilots "how badly" an aircraft can fly (they were spoiled by newer hardware). I can tell a Merlin from a long way off. Whenever that P51 was visiting, I would rush outside. Not once did I beat my friend to the parking lot--even though he was in his 70s at the time. We would stand together quietly until the a/c departed the area. He had no faith in his particular training, but he loved that airplane.