P-40N

After 8 long years of very hard work, Chris Prevost flew his P-40 out of Schelville airport near Sonoma, Ca today. This is a dual control model and he will sell rides in it.
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why no tiger teeth? hope he comes to tyndall. i flew in the B-25 this year. best money i ever spent but a P-40, oh baby.

 

Very cool indeed!

Thanks for posting

 

He has done that totally correct from what I can see. What a beautiful airplane ! When I was a kid in '42-'43 they had P40N's at Sarasota Airbase and I got to see plenty of them. Always a beautiful airplane. Some place I have pictures of one that landed wheels up when the light weight canopy collapsed on the pilot and jammed his head into the instrument panel. He was talked down from the tower. Curtiss went through a weight reduction program during the war on the P40N and one of them was the canopy frame and fuselage aft of the cockpit as seen by the cut down of the structure...helped vision to the rear too.
In 1942 the sky was full of these things at Sarasota and all of them weren't flown by pilots who were capable of doing the job. Many many crashes, some near our house and I had a pile of wreckage from some of them. They used to come over our house on the beach with the lead airplane firing out into the Gulf and then a string of 8 to 10 would fire into the foam from the first. A rain of brass and links would descend on the house and yard. I had a belt of empty cal. 50 rounds probably 25 feet long. In 1943 the military set up a range on Lido Key where they fired at land based targets and were scored. My buddy and I would ride our bikes about 20 miles up there to watch them. I'll never forget the muzzle blast when all 6 50's cut loose as they were coming in on the target. It's hard to believe that one year later I was in the air force firing the weapons that I watched then.

 

Vid, for those who aren't WIX readers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIOIdUj2deM

 

Well, thanks for posting that. It brought a few tears.

 

A friend of mine who worked at Curtiss Wright early in the war, and then later on became a pilot and flew P40's, P47's, and P51's. While it wasn't the fastest or worth a darn at altitude, according to him, the P40 was by far the most enjoyable to fly of the three. He said the control harmony was beautiful, you could put the nose at a point on the horizon and do a roll around it and it felt like you were rotating the airplane around your head. The combat deficiencies of the airplane are well documented, not many folks talk about how it was to fly it. Just one man's opinion, but since he had experience in all three, I'll take it.

 

The P-40 was a good airplane and prooved itself in the early stages of the war...not great, but good enough to do the job and it was underrated. It was too heavy but it could take punishment and by the end of the war the P-40N was 2000 pounds lighter than the early models. The N had a lengthened tail arm for directional control that cured the short-tailed disease that most Curtiss airplanes had. Take the SB2C...please. One of the worst airplanes ever to find use in the war and it had an ultra short tail arm that was ridiculous. The rest of the airplane wasn't any better.

 

I've heard much the same from a former P-40 driver who later flew 'Jugs' in Italy. He said it was a wonderful airplane to fly, with smooth, responsive, and balanced controls. One of the 'new' P-40 pilots -- I can't remember who -- flying a restored P-40 was surprised by how lovely it was to fly.

 

I really admire the P-40 and P-36 Curtiss planes. Having been stationed at Clark and an early war history buff, there is a lot of courageous history of these planes besides the Flying Tigers.

 

Great video. I forgot how great these things sound.
I kept looking to see what the "round" engine was that I could hear at the end of the video.

 

A few more for you Curtiss nuts
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Great stuff! Must bring back some old memories.
Is that you in the back?

 

Naw...I gave him a lot of parts for that thing and Chris owes me a few rides. 1 for me, another for the kid and.....? This otta get your dad going.......not the 51 shots but the perhaps back seat ride(dual controls) for the worthy. Shots out of the 51 just to wake you guys up
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Pix from a few months ago.
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I love the P-40. I like to see original pics of the early models (B/C), with the pre-42 U.S. markings.


I saw a pic of quite a few P-40's waiting to be cut-up, just after the war. I believe the gov, sold them for less than a thousand dollars. I think the most expensive warbird for sale, was the P-61. If I remember correctly, those were listed at around $4,000 USD. P-51's were approximately $1,500. Bearcats,... oh, you get the idea.

 

Never seen one with the cowl off before. I always imagined most of it was full of radiator and oil cooler. Those three are tiny. I assume one is an oil cooler?

Now I understand how the early models had a cooling air intake that started much further back. The radiators are so far back there was no space issue, probably just an airflow improvement with the later cowl.

 

Sparky can correct us on this but it appears that the two outside heat exchangers are for glycol and the center one is for oil. Just from looking at the plumbing. Man what a beautiful job ! I think that the space and area behind the coolers on the later models had something to do with increasing the airflow and the size of the heat exchangers improved the cooling. Anybody ???
SWITCHES

 

The orginal rads were produced by Winchester...yep same gang that made your trusty 1873. They were a little longer but the same diameter. These look like DC-6 0r 7 units. Correct Bob that the outers are for eng cooling and center for oil. There is a large entry duct and exit duct that is fitted to the rads. See if I can come up with a pix.

 

Very nice. I'm trying to get the archived link of the Sonoma Index Tribunes article and pics done on this when you were there.

We love seeing these take off over our heads as we sit on Gloria Ferrars balcony sipping our champagne each Sat and Sunday. You may see the 456 in the parking lot as you do your takeoff as only a few feet above that balcony and in direct path of the runway.

rik

 

Gloria Ferrari? Any kin to Al or Maggie Farrari? Al owned Red Top Dairy in Vallejo then Cordelia for years then off to Reno and the hotel/casino business. A shirt tail relative of mine.

 

Gloria FerrEr[missing "i" AND I spelled her name wrong the first time.] is head of one of the largest wineries in the world, more well known as Frexinet. They are almost blood enemies of Cordinu, another Spanish winery, and having an American 'cousin' about 5 miles from Shelville called Artesia. Beautiful grass and glass winery.

I remember Ret Top, great place, and haven't been back since it burned, though pass it all the time on way to Sacto on HW 12.

What is the hotel/casino called in Reno, might be worth a visit as they had an outstanding Dairy.

rik ... BTW< you have nice planes....the best in terms of engineering and raw power....REAL Flight

last min. post: had a video from last Sunday of one of the three multi-winded oldies, but not worth posting....however this was taken last Sunday also, and is right in front of [what is that runway? 27? ] about 1/8 mile away....always fun watching them come right overhead and then turn etc.
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