The P82 was changed to F82 in 1948 to bring it into line with the aircraft type letters used by the USAF which had been formed in 1947.
Although the F82 was considered obsolete by then the appearance of the Russian TU4 (B29 copy) in 1948 reactivated the Twin Mustang as it was the only plane available with the range sufficient to intercept the TU4 well before it got anywhere near its target. An important consideration with the advent of nuclear weapons.
Thanks guys, I have been making a bunch of progress. Just set the horizontal stabilizer in place now I guess I'll be looking at lining her up. Foam board isn't very scale but it is easy to work with.
My father worked for North American Aviation. Thats where I got the bug. He took us kids to see Jack Northrup's flying wing take off on it's way to be scraped in the early '50's and I've been looking at the sky ever since.