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This photograph shows a NACA research pilot running up the engine of the F-51D Mustang on the taxiway adjacent to Rogers Dry Lake at the NACA High-Speed Flight Station in 1955. A P-51D Mustang, redesignated an F-51 Mustang, was transferred from the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory to the NACA High-Speed Flight Research Station (now the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center) at Edwards Air Force Base in California, in 1950. The P-51D Mustang was the first aircraft to employ the NACA laminar-flow airfoil design and could dive to around Mach number 0.8. As an F-51, it was used as a proficiency aircraft at the High Speed Flight Station.