Tom Reilly and the XP-82 Twin Mustang that took twenty years to fly again

Tom Reilly’s restoration of the last flyable XP-82 Twin Mustang stands as one of the most ambitious achievements in warbird history. Over roughly two decades, Reilly took a corroded, engineless prototype that had sat outdoors in Ohio since the 1950s and returned it to the skies over Douglas, Georgia — the only flying example of its kind in the world.

What Is the P-82 Twin Mustang?

The North American P-82 Twin Mustang is exactly what it looks like: two P-51 Mustang fuselages joined at the wing and horizontal stabilizer, with a pilot in the left cockpit and a navigator or radar operator in the right. Two engines, two cockpits, one airplane.

North American Aviation designed it late in World War II as a long-range escort fighter capable of flying missions to Tokyo and back — roughly twelve hours in the air. The solution to pilot fatigue and fuel capacity was elegantly simple: double everything. Two engines, two sets of fuel tanks, and two crewmembers who could share the workload.

The Twin Mustang arrived too late for the Pacific war, but it carved out a second career in the early Cold War as a night fighter and all-weather interceptor. On June 27, 1950, just days after the Korean War began, a P-82G crewed by Lieutenant William Hudson and radar operator Lieutenant Carl Fraser shot down a North Korean Yak-11 — the first aerial victory of the Korean War.

North American built only about 272 Twin Mustangs across all variants. Hard military use and the transition to jets sent most of them to the smelter. By the time warbird collectors began searching, almost none remained.

How Did the XP-82 Survive?

The airframe Reilly acquired was no ordinary Twin Mustang. It was an XP-82, the experimental prototype variant, and it had been sitting at the Walter Soplata collection in Newbury, Ohio, for decades.

Soplata was a legendary figure in warbird archaeology — a hoarder of vintage aircraft who saved dozens of rare planes from the scrapyard by hauling them to his rural Ohio property. He wasn’t restoring them. He was simply refusing to let them die. The airplanes sat outside for years. They rusted, settled into mud, and had trees growing through their wings. But they survived.

The XP-82 had been on Soplata’s property since the 1950s — an experimental prototype from 1945, exposed to Ohio weather for half a century. The fuselages were rough, the skins corroded, the engines long gone. Most people saw scrap metal. Tom Reilly saw an airplane.

Why Was This Restoration So Difficult?

The P-51 Mustang is the most popular warbird in the world. It has an entire support industry: parts suppliers, engine shops, Merlin specialists, vendors selling new wingtips and canopy frames. The Twin Mustang has none of that.

There is no supplier for a P-82 center wing section. The unique fittings joining two fuselages to a common wing structure, the specialized landing gear, the control systems linking two cockpits to shared flight surfaces — all of it is one-of-a-kind engineering. Reilly fabricated, machined, and manufactured hundreds of parts from scratch, working from original North American Aviation drawings when available and reverse-engineering from the wreckage when not.

The engines presented their own challenge. The original XP-82 prototypes used Packard-built Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, but with a critical difference from a standard P-51: the two engines turned in opposite directions. The left engine ran a standard-rotation propeller; the right ran a counter-rotating one. This eliminated the torque and P-factor problems that plague conventional twins and gave the airplane beautifully balanced handling. Finding and rebuilding a matched pair of counter-rotating Merlins in the twenty-first century required sourcing rare engine variants and locating specialists capable of overhauling them.

The center wing section was perhaps the greatest structural challenge — the piece that ties both fuselages together and carries the loads of both engines, both landing gear, and the shared control surfaces. Reilly had to recreate this structure to original specifications while meeting modern airworthiness standards. Every rivet hole, spar cap, and skin panel had to be correct.

What Kept the Project Going for Twenty Years?

The restoration stretched across roughly two decades, not from lack of effort but from the sheer complexity of the airplane and the near-total absence of parts and institutional knowledge. There was no online forum to consult, no fellow restorer down the road who had done it before. When Reilly hit a problem at two in the morning with a 1944 drawing that didn’t match the aluminum in front of him, he was the only person who could solve it.

Funding was a constant challenge. A project of this scale runs into the millions of dollars with no guarantee of return. The local community in Douglas, Georgia, rallied behind the effort, with townspeople regularly stopping by to check progress. The Twin Mustang became a source of local pride.

Gradually, the airplane took shape: two fuselages freshly skinned in polished aluminum, the center wing connecting them, new wiring harnesses, rebuilt hydraulic systems, and instrument panels blending original wartime gauges with the minimum modern equipment needed for safe flight.

What Was It Like When the XP-82 Finally Flew?

The first engine runs marked the moment the restoration became real. The Merlins coughed, popped, and caught — two counter-rotating V-12 engines producing a deep, thrumming rumble distinct from any single-engine Mustang. The sound has a harmonic quality as the two engines sync into a unified roar.

Taxi tests followed: rolling down the runway, verifying controls, brakes, and tailwheel steering with the unique twin-fuselage geometry. Everything had to be confirmed on the ground first.

When the XP-82 finally lifted off the runway in Douglas, Georgia, witnesses reported there wasn’t a dry eye on the field. The airplane everyone said was too rare, too complex, and too far gone climbed into a Georgia sky on two Merlins, the counter-rotating props pulling it smooth and straight — looking exactly as it did when it rolled off the line in Inglewood, California, more than seventy years earlier.

Flight testing confirmed what original test pilots had always said: the Twin Mustang flies like a dream. Counter-rotating propellers eliminate almost all asymmetric thrust issues. The airplane is stable, responsive, and fast.

Why Does the XP-82 Matter?

The P-82 Twin Mustang was the last propeller-driven fighter ordered by the United States Air Force. After the P-82, everything went jet. Reilly’s restoration preserves the final chapter of the piston fighter era in a machine that still flies rather than sitting behind museum ropes.

Only a handful of Twin Mustang airframes survive worldwide in any condition, and most are static displays. Reilly’s XP-82 is the only one that breathes.

The story also illustrates how warbird preservation works as a relay race. Walter Soplata ran the first leg by dragging the prototype home and refusing to let the scrappers have it, never imagining it would fly again. Fifty years later, Tom Reilly ran the anchor leg, turning Soplata’s stubbornness into a flying airplane. Without either man, the last Twin Mustang would be gone.

Key Takeaways

• Tom Reilly spent roughly twenty years restoring the world’s only flyable XP-82 Twin Mustang from a corroded, engineless hulk that had sat outdoors in Ohio since the 1950s.
• The Twin Mustang’s counter-rotating Merlin engines, unique center wing section, and dual-cockpit control systems made the restoration exponentially harder than a standard P-51 project — with virtually no parts supply chain or community support.
• The P-82 was the last piston-engine fighter ordered by the U.S. Air Force, making this restoration a preservation of the final chapter of the propeller fighter era.
• Walter Soplata’s decades of informal aircraft hoarding in rural Ohio saved the airframe from the smelter, proving that preservation and restoration are a relay race across generations.
• A P-82 Twin Mustang scored the first aerial victory of the Korean War on June 27, 1950, flown by Lt. William Hudson and radar operator Lt. Carl Fraser.