New home for old favorites

A Piper PA-48 Enforcer now sits at the Air Force Flight Test Museum since Sept. 22. The AFFT Museum recently acquired two remodeled historic aircraft, a YF-4E Phantom II and a Piper PA-48 Enforcer, during the end of September to add to its lineup of historic flight test aircraft. The Piper PA-48 Enforcer is a turboprop powered light close air support/ground-attack aircraft built by Piper Aircraft Corp. Lakeland, Fla. It was the ultimate development of the original World War II North American P-51 Mustang. The Enforcer concept was originally created and flown by David Lindsay, owner of Cavalier Aircraft, in response to the United States Air Force PAVE COIN program and later sold to Piper by Lindsay in 1970. In 1968, Cavalier Aircraft owner/founder David Lindsay had begun developing a highly modified version of the Cavalier Mustang for use as a counter-insurgency aircraft. Cavalier initially mated a Rolls-Royce Dart 510 turboprop to a Mustang II airframe, but despite numerous sales attempts to the United States Air Force, neither the U.S. military nor any foreign operators purchased the Turbo Mustang III. Seeking a company with mass production capability, the Turbo Mustang III, renamed the "Enforcer," was sold to Piper Aircraft in late 1970. In 1984 with a $12 million appropriation from Congress, Piper built two new Enforcers, giving the new prototypes the designation PA-48. These aircraft were evaluated by the USAF, but flown only by Piper test pilots. Since the Enforcer was never in the Air Force inventory, it was not given an official military designation and did not receive an air force serial number. Instead, these aircraft carried the Piper designation PA-48 and FAA registration numbers, N481PE and N482PE. The two PA-48s were tested during 1983 and 1984 at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., and Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. As in the Pave COIN tests of 1971, the PA-48s were found to perform well in their intended role, but the USAF decided not to purchase the aircr