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P-40 Warhawk (re: Flying Tigers) (Curtiss)

USAFSS-ColdWarrior

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frank8003

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Last P40 I saw fly still had original desert paint that faded patina to Pink.
It was, perhaps, a P40F with the Packard V1650-1 (Merlin).
They were not just kidding when they named the P-40 a Warhawk.

All machines built evolve as the need arises, in the case of aircraft it is the wing form, engines, and necessities.

About that P-51, The second engine try made that ship go higher, longer.
Engines were $25,000 then about equal to $417,000 now.
Complex they were.
https://www.hemmings.com/magazine/hmn/2012/04/Packard-Merlin-V-1650/3711471.html

In my studies I found Merlin Magic, attached is an excerpt.
I have built things without gaskets but had to finish lap all surfaces, you will find this interesting.

View attachment Merlin Magic.pdf
 
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frank8003

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Guyfang

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The sound, that sound.
I heard Japanese, American, British, Italian, Russian, Czechoslovakian, Australian, aircraft
flyover but yet to hear a German BF109 or a German Diesel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW-G7pF6gUQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEdZafAHG2Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OnIAAdtLlc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAMti-MmLpw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu1WuUaroHI

and after 50 years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFeTZdrxQUU
Great film clips. In the forth from the top, could have been a young Adolf Galland. Wonderful sounds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

Guyfang

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A fine example of the P-40, is in the Udvar-Hazy facility, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution. It is painted in the color and nose art of Lt. Donald S. Lopez. Who a almost a half century later, became the Deputy Museum Director of National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

There was a fine article about the restoration of the aircraft in Air and Space.

The only flyable P-40 I ever saw as a kid, was North of El Centro, Calif, not far from the Salton Sea. We went to an old rundown, ex military airstrip, in the middle of nowhere, to take pictures of it, and a P-38 Lightning. They both belonged to the same person. He didnt mind me climbing up on the P-38, but said the P-40 was more fragel. He had flown in the war, and came home to grow cotton, I think. He bought "several planes" and used them to get around that part of the desert. The P-40 was still an olive green, but badly faded by the sun. The P-38 was bare bones. No paint but the tail number.
 
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