Your Tomahawk Sir

[cardboard_killer]

"{Eighty years ago today] Pleased with the performance of the Curtiss Model 75 fighter (export version of the P-36), the French Armée de l’Air orders a shipment of Model 81 fighters, the export version of the P-40. These will not be delivered prior to the armistice, and on the orders of outgoing French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud will be delivered to the RAF as Mark-I Tomahawks."

 

 

Canadian Tomahawk-I's

[cardboard_killer]

Not really worthy of a new thread, here's an 80 years ago today trivia shot:

 

While intercepting a Luftwaffe Dornier-17 that is twenty miles into Belgian airspace to order it out, a Belgian Hurricane Mark-I piloted by Sgt. Pierre Van Strijdonck is hit by the rear gunner over the Durbuy area in the Ardennes. The pilot manages to make a belly landing in his crippled aircraft. The Germans will state they thought the Hurricane was British.

 

[cardboard_killer]

[80 years ago today] "• With the Tomahawk (P-40, P-40B, and C) proving popular in the Mediterranean theatre and the Kittyhawk (P-40D and E) in the pipeline, Curtiss has tried to improve the high altitude performance of the Allison engine fighter. Efforts to use a turbo-supercharged Allison V-1710 fails as the size is too great for the airframe. Rolls Royce provided a Merlin 28 which flies for the first time today in a modified P-40D.

- Performance is excellent but control and stability is compromised by the supercharged engine. Orders will be made for the P-40F Warhawk by the USAAF and RAF using Packard license built Merlins. The stability issue will be addressed by lengthening the airframe by two feet, mostly by extending the tail.

- After Pearl Harbor the US Army will take over most of the British order and deny a Navy request for P-40Fs to replace F2A Buffaloes and F4F Wildcats in Marine Corps squadrons.

- The below P-40F actually flew in the Southwest Pacific but after restoration wears the colors of the 85th Fighter squadron based in Sicily and Italy, complete with RAF style fin flash:

 

- Due to chronic shortages of the Merlin engine, only around 2,000 of the more than 13,700 P-40s built will have them. "