This is Mrs. Virginia -- a North American P-51A Mustang, serial 43-6251, and the only authentic, original P-51A currently flying in the world. Only 310 were ever built before production was cut short the moment the Merlin engine conversion proved successful. Of those 310, she is the last one flying in original unmodified form.
The name is not what you would expect. While other pilots named their aircraft after wives and girlfriends, Major Robert Petit of the 1st Air Commando Group named his P-51A after his mother -- Virginia Petit of Oxnard, California. The "Mrs." is her honorific. He took his mother name to war over Burma in 1944.
The war she flew is one most people have never heard of. The China-Burma-India Theater was the forgotten front of World War II. While Europe got the headlines, Burma was the strategic linchpin of the entire Pacific war -- the supply route to China, the back door to India, and the proving ground for some of the most audacious operations in American military history. The 1st Air Commando Group was organized personally by General Hap Arnold after FDR was impressed by British General Wingate account of what could be accomplished in Burma with proper air support. All volunteers. Their P-51As wore five white diagonal stripes specifically designed to let the Japanese know who was dominating the skies of Burma.
On March 5, 1944 the 1st Air Commandos launched Operation Thursday -- the first aerial invasion in history. They flew Wingate Chindit Raiders directly behind Japanese lines in gliders, with P-51As flying escort. Petit flew 151 combat missions over Burma totaling 374 flying hours. He survived. After the war his career was extraordinary -- he flew with the 94th Fighter Squadron, the famous Hat in the Ring squadron that Eddie Rickenbacker commanded in WWI, won the 1947 Thompson Trophy air race at Cleveland flying an F-80 jet, served in Vietnam as Chief of Staff of the Seventh Air Force, and retired as a Major General. He died December 23, 2010.
Before anyone argues the A-model was inferior to the famous D-model -- the AAF School of Applied Tactics officially rated the P-51A the best American fighter below 22,000 feet. The USAAF sent them to Burma specifically because the CBI theater fighting was almost entirely at low altitude, exactly where the Allison engine excelled. The pilots who flew her in that theater did not consider her inferior to anything.
There is one other flying P-51A -- Shanty Irish, formerly known as Polar Bear, recovered from an Alaskan mountain and restored back to A-model specs after years of Reno racing modifications. Planes of Fame considers Mrs. Virginia the only original unmodified example. The aircraft was acquired by Ed Maloney in 1953, restored to flying condition with her first post-restoration flight on August 19, 1981, and later appeared in the 1992 movie Iron Eagle III. Major Robert Petit named her after his mother and took her name to war over Burma. 80 years later she is still flying over California.