Reviving a Ghost
The Galloping Ghost has clipped wings that are 10 feet shorter than a stock
Mustang, as well as a smaller, more aerodynamic canopy, making the Ghost
seem tiny in comparison to a production P- 51 like the one it is racing here.
36 Sport Aviation May 2011
“I’ll give Tiger
Destefani $10,000
cash if he’ll
climb back into
Strega and let me
race him in The
Galloping Ghost.
That’s how badly I
want to beat him
and that airplane.”
Jimmy Leeward, EAA 73757, of Ocala,
Florida, is just a bit competitive—and confident. He is a longtime EAA member,
longtime warbird pilot (he soloed a T- 6 illegally at the age of 14), longtime movie pilot
(he worked on dozens of films, beginning in
1980), longtime EAA director (he first joined
the board in the late ’70s), longtime and serious Unlimited class race pilot (he estimates
150 races since 1976), and apparently a long-time Tiger Destefani competitor.
And now he is the owner, restorer, and
modifier of one of the few Unlimited racers
that survived the postwar Cleveland Air Races
to be a major competitor at Reno: the North
American P-51D- 15 The Galloping Ghost.
Leeward and the Ghost are two well-traveled
survivors still doing the proverbial fly-low-fly-fast-turn-left boogie. Yep, still crazy after all
these years. And damn proud of it!
Jimmy grew up at the airport and in the
cockpit. His dad was a barnstormer and had
an aircraft services business in Pennsylvania
before World War II. He spent the war flying for the Royal Canadian Air Force Ferry
Command, flying all the bombers including the Mosquito. After the war, he leased
an airport and had an airplane surplus
