Mustangs with leather seats

In 1957 David Lindsay, a Sarasota newspaper publisher, founded Trans Florida Aviation with an unlikely idea: to turn surplus P-51 Mustang fighters into business aircraft. Many of the airframes came from scrap dealers who had meant to melt them down. Each was stripped, rebuilt with a second seat, new avionics, a luggage bay and plush leather interiors, and sold as the Executive Mustang, soon renamed the Cavalier. The model numbers, 750 to 2500, gave the approximate range in miles.

Back into uniform

Nearly 20 civil Cavaliers were built, and North American Aviation itself bought two for its display pilot Bob Hoover. Then the military came back. In 1964–65 Trans Florida overhauled more than 30 Dominican Air Force F-51Ds, and from 1967 the Pentagon ordered new-build Cavalier F-51Ds for friendly air forces. Bolivia received nine under Peace Condor; El Salvador got five Mustang IIs with tip tanks; Indonesia got six without, because the State Department limited their radius. The firm was renamed Cavalier Aircraft Corporation in 1967.

The Enforcer

In 1968 Lindsay bolted a Rolls-Royce Dart turboprop onto a Mustang II. The Turbo Mustang III, later called the Enforcer, performed well but found no buyer, and Cavalier was too small to mass-produce it. Lindsay sold the project to Piper in 1971 and closed Cavalier to help develop the PA-48 Enforcer. Many Cavaliers still fly, most restored to look like wartime P-51s but keeping their Cavalier improvements.

Fábricas

• Sarasota works · Sarasota, Florida — Conversions, overhauls and spares stockpile

Pessoas

• David Lindsay · founder — Newspaper publisher (1922–2009); later worked on the Piper Enforcer
• Bob Hoover · test and display pilot — North American Aviation bought two Cavaliers for him, 1962 and 1971