The Mustang's office

October 2, 2026 · feature

The P-51D Mustang has a cockpit of its own now. Press C and you're sat high in the bubble with the whole sky round you. The K-14 gunsight stands on the olive glare shield ahead, its six amber diamonds round the pip, and the six fifties meet where it says they will.

High in the bubble

The Mustang's bubble canopy was famous for its view, and it is the first thing you notice from the seat. There's no frame over your head and no armoured glazing behind you, only clear sky right round and down over both wings. Look back past your shoulder and you can watch a bandit curving in on your six.

Ahead, the grey windscreen arch stands over the flat armoured front pane and its two dark posts. Past the anti-glare panel the long olive nose runs out to the spinner.

The view from a P-51D Mustang's cockpit high over a green island: a grey windscreen arch with two dark posts, the K-14 gunsight on an olive glare shield with six amber diamonds round its pip and a smoking cobalt fighter inside them, three bombers beyond, tracers streaking in from both wings, and the black instrument panel below — Flying escort over a Crimson Fortress box: a Cobalt Bf 109 dives through the bombers and into the K-14's diamonds.

Six diamonds

The K-14 was a gyro gunsight. Instead of a ring it threw six amber diamonds round the pip, and Mustang pilots learned to frame a bandit's wings inside them. Here the diamonds sit round the pip, and the pip is where the six fifties converge. Put it on him at the range your guns meet and the burst goes home.

The panel at your knees

Look down and the panel is the Mustang's own:

the six flight instruments in their white-ringed block, with airspeed in mph, the directional gyro, the big horizon, the altimeter, turn and bank, and rate of climb;
the Merlin's tachometer, coolant and manifold pressure in inches of mercury beside them;
the remote compass and the clock by the gunsight.

Every needle flies with you. Wind the throttle forward and the manifold pressure climbs. Bank hard and the horizon leans over and the turn needle swings across. The stick, the pedals and the throttle lever move under your hands and feet.

There's plenty to find around you as well. The big black elevator trim wheel is down by your left knee, with the throttle quadrant and the gear handle's green knob ahead of it. The oxygen hose hangs in a loop to the seat. The canopy crank is on the right-hand wall.

Wind it back for the deck

Ease down a friendly carrier's deck on the rearm pass and the crank winds the bubble back on its rails, leaving open sky over your head. Climb away and it winds shut again before the next fight.

That makes seven cockpits: the Spitfire, the Mustang, the P-38, the B-17, the Bf 109, the Fw 190 and the Corsair. Pick a Mustang, take off and press C.