Curtiss P-40B Pearl Harbour Veteran

[mauld]

[champ driver]

Although it doesn't have the looks of the Spitfire or the Mustang, I still love the P-40's classic lines, and it's a B model to boot.
Thanks

[Louis]

I agree. If I had a budget for warbirds I'd much rather have a P-40 than a P-51. The P40 has a WWII history in my home state, flown by both the US Army Air Force and the RCAF. I've heard they fly nicer than P-51's too.

[dstaffeldt]

Unfortunately, this P-40 it out of commission for a while due to a recent incident after returning to the U.S. will be great to see it return to flying some day.

[Bill Greenwood]

Re looks , I might not be neutral observer, but no warplane looks as good as a Spitfire, but a P-40 does have its own appeal, with some of the 1930's antique flavor combined with monoplane fighter elements.

Thanks to Bill ( Tiger) Destefani I was able to get a short sample flight in his P-40, so a quick impressions; great ailerons light and effective, takes a Lot of force just to move rudder pedals to taxi, really heavy, not too good forward visibility on ground, Allison engine doesn't seem as smooth as a Merlin in flight.

In combat the key was to keep speed up and use good dive speed for one attack and then dive away. It's big deficiency was lack of climb performance, especially above 15,000 feet where the Merlin really began to shine.

[Bill Greenwood]

It would be surprising to find a P-40 whose history could be traced back to Pearl Harbor at the time of the attacks and which survived.

Can you tell us who owns this P-40 now and where it is?

Thanks

[Kyle Boatright]

They groundlooped it in Florida. Here's a link:

http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=170738

[1600vw]

They groundlooped it in Florida. Here's a link:

http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=170738

Bummer. At least no one was hurt but some pride.

Tony

[Kyle Boatright]

Bummer. At least no one was hurt but some pride.

Tony

It'll get rebuilt. Lots worse have. The gearbox and prop are the hardest bits to replace. Hopefully, they only damaged the prop.

There's a guy here in Atlanta who has built tooling for virtually all of the P-40 airframe parts. He's even set up to do forgings and some of the other things that are outside the capability of many people. You should see the projects he has in his shop.

[c322348]

No such place as Pearl Harbour...