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CURTISS P-40C TOMAHAWK
NAKAJIMA KI-43 HAYABUSA OSCAR TYPE I
The FHC’s Curtiss P-40C Tomahawk saw combat in northwest Russia during World War II, flying and fighting in some of the most extreme conditions in the world.
The Curtiss-Wright P-40 Hawk series of fighter planes first flew in 1938; years after the Bf 109 (1935) and Spitfire (1936) made their debuts. However, the American aircraft
never matched its European counterparts. With the threat of war on the horizon, the United States Army Air Corps chose the P-40, not because it was the best, but because it could be built quickly and in great numbers. And, while the fighter was never a world-beater, it is arguably one of the most important Allied warplanes of the opening years of World War
II.
The story of the P-40 starts with the radial engine powered Curtiss P-36. First flown in 1935, the Curtiss Hawk and Mohawk fighters had relatively short careers in army service and were considered obsolete by the beginning of World War II. However, the availability of an Allison in-line engine in 1937 gave potential to an improved version of the Hawk.
The P-40 was almost identical to the P-36, except for the new liquid-cooled V-12
engine in the nose. The first example flew in October 1938, and the first delivery of
production planes came in May 1940. That summer, in Europe, the fighters of the RAF
and Luftwaffe were locked in combat that would determine the future of Great Britain. It did not take an aeronautical engineer to see that the P-40 was not up to the standards of a Spitfire or Bf 109.
While the Curtiss P-40 was the first US fighter capable of three hundred miles per hour, it had the soul of an ancient airplane. It was slower than the Spitfire and Bf 109, had a mix of light armament, featured no self-sealing fuel tanks, and had very little armor. Toe-to-toe, early P-40s stood no chance against Europe’s best.
This was not solely the fault of Curtiss. The US military got what they asked for. The P-40 was made for low altitudes and ground support operations. Curtiss did not build a plane to tussle with the best fighters of the day at higher altitudes.
In this touched-up Russian propaganda photo, one of America’s Tomahawk fighters can be seen in service with flyers of the Soviet Air Force near Murmansk.
Flying Tiger aircraft were originally produced for Britain as Lend-Lease aircraft. As a result, they wear RAF-style camouflage.
If you look closely at the patterns on the wings and fuselage, you can see the outline of spots where the British roundels were supposed to be placed.
Uncowled for inspection, the P-40’s “long-nose” Allison engine can be seen. The C-model power plant had an extended gear reduction case that helped it fit into streamlined fighters like the Curtiss Tomahawk.
The fighter, like the P-36 before it, was a low-wing, all-metal monoplane with an
enclosed cockpit and retractable landing gear—typical for the mid to late 1930s. It
featured an Alclad skin (corrosion-resistant aluminum sheet made by Alcoa Inc.) with
flush rivets. The wings were National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)
aerofoil 2215 at the root and 2209 near the tip. The initial version of the plane carried four
.30-caliber machine guns in its wings and two .50-caliber machine guns in its nose. One distinctive feature of the plane was its main landing gear, which retracted backward and rotated through ninety degrees to lie flat within the wing.
Even with shortcomings, there was urgent demand for the P-40. The plane could be
built immediately and in great numbers. Curtiss got the green light to make as many P-40s as they could and improvements would happen on the fly. As problems were corrected—
with additional guns, more armor, and self-sealing fuel tanks, and weight added—the
plane’s performance dropped even more.
Great Britain, fighting in the skies over Africa, took what they could get. France, about to be overrun by German Panzers, wanted the P-40s too. Later, Russia would use the
planes at low level to attack the invading German armies and wanted squadrons of the
American machines.
China also wanted the P-40s. The Nationalist Chinese, fighting the Japanese, needed
modern weapons and skilled pilots to turn the tide. American military pilots, led by ex-army aviator Claire Chennault, resigned their commissions and volunteered to go to China along with a hundred Curtiss P-40B-type fighters. The American Volunteer Group (AVG),
better known as the “Flying Tigers,” fought alongside Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese forces.
The AVG’s P-40s, adorned with their famous shark mouths, fared well against Japanese
Nate and Oscar fighters. Chennault insisted that his pilots play to the P-40’s strengths.
Above all, he warned, avoid low-speed turning fights against the more maneuverable
Japanese types that the P-40s could not win. It was always “hit and run” with the Curtiss planes. Dive in, attack, and climb away at high speed to set up another pass. According to the Flying Tigers Association, the Flying Tigers shot down 299 Japanese aircraft while losing just 12 planes in combat.
The P-40 was the primary US Army fighter when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. It
fought in Hawaii, the Philippines, Alaska, Africa, and Southern Europe—nearly
everywhere. However, never equipped for high altitude escort work, P-40s did not fly
combat missions from England.
Another reason the P-40 was kept out of the fights over the English Channel and
beyond was that the plane was always outclassed by the latest Bf 109. American pilots in Africa and Italy had a little joke about meeting a Messerschmitt while piloting a P-40.
“You might as well stay and fight,” they said, “because you certainly can’t run away.”
One trait nearly every P-40 pilot agreed upon was that the plane was rugged. It could
be flown from extremely primitive airfields and it could absorb tremendous punishment
and return home safely.
As the P-47 and P-51 arrived in greater numbers, P-40s were withdrawn from frontline
service. More Curtiss fighters were sent to other nations while others became stateside training aircraft. Some historians complain that the P-40 was not phased out fast enough.
The last of over 13,700 Curtiss P-40s was built in December 1944.
The Flying Heritage Collection P-40C Tomahawk was built in Buffalo, New York, in
March 1941. The plane was one of a block of 193 fighters acquired by the US
Government for around $40,148.00 each. Air Corps serial number 41-13390 was built
with an Allison V-1710-33 engine.
On a test flight, the FHC’s Tomahawk is put through its paces. The fighter is one of the most popular in the collection. The plane is particularly liked by children, who are drawn to its wicked sharkmouth smile.
A pilot helps armorers load ammunition into the wings of a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk. The flyer (on the right) is Robert Scott Jr., future author of the famous book, God is My Co-Pilot.
The imposing sharkmouth was the iconic image of the American Volunteer Group. But did you know the famous Flying Tigers were actually copycats? The American airman saw the striking motif in Illustrated Weekly of India. It was RAF pilots fighting in North Africa that first applied the teeth and wild eyeballs to the cowls of their P-40 fighters.
During its combat career, the FHC’s P-40 was peppered with bullets. Restorers patched most of the holes, but left one. Pierced through the forward former just above the access door support rod, one small-caliber bullet hole remains in the veteran fighter plane.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Both the P-40 and Ki-43 “Oscar” have stories behind their names.
The P-40 was a souped-up version of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk, which was called
“Mohawk” in the United Kingdom. All versions of the P-40 had the word “hawk” in
their nicknames, too. The names often depended on who was flying the aircraft.
Technically, the fighters were all Warhawks when they left the factory—the American
name for the P-40 fighter—but planes destined to go to the United Kingdom received
different names. Early versions of the P-40 became the “Tomahawk.” The P-40D-
model and beyond were called “Kittyhawk” when they flew with the RAF overseas.
The FHC’s Oscar has an odd, double name. The Japanese knew the Nakajima Ki-
43 as “Hayabusa,” literally Peregrine Falcon. This beautiful bird of prey, Falco peregrinus, is seen throughout much of the world.
Oscar was simply the Allied radio code word for the Ki-43 fighter. The military
gave Japanese fighters male names like “Oscar,” “Pete,” “George,” and “Frank,”
while bombers received female names such as “Val,” “Betty,” and “Kate.” With these
distinctive code names, a pilot could talk quickly and clearly about an enemy aircraft in a sort of shorthand slang.
The famous “Flying Tiger” insignia on the side of the plane is one of hundreds of designs and logos churned out by Walt Disney Studios for the military during World War II. Just like the original, the FHC’s tiger decal is affixed to the plane with varnish.
By June, the fighter had become property of the Office of Defense Aid and slated to be shipped to Europe, part of a purchase of 1,180 Curtiss fighters destined for Great Britain.
Most of the planes in the batch were Tomahawk Mk.IIb aircraft straight from the Curtiss factory, equivalent to the P-40C but made specifically for Britain. Fighters of this type fought in North Africa with the RAF and South African Air Force, while others went to
China and served with the famous “Flying Tigers.”
Either before the P-40C ever got to England or shortly after it arrived, the Curtiss
fighter was one of about 247 turned over to the Soviet Union.
The first of the Tomahawks began arriving in Russia in September 1941. The Russians
were not pleased with their new aircraft. The engines were failing at a furious rate, leading many of the pilots to crash-land their new aircraft. A faulty generator drive gear “killed”
nineteen engines by November 1941. For a time, the Russians grounded their P-40s to fix the issue.
The FHC’s P-40 reportedly arrived at the port of Murmansk, Russia, in early 1942. The
US Army P-40C, which was not an English plane with an RAF serial, caused some
paperwork issues. Instead of an RAF serial, the plane number was assigned using the last three digits of its Curtiss company construction number, becoming “194.”
The Russians considered the P-40s to be not as good as the Hurricane or P-39.
However, it was fairly easy to fly for an average pilot. They also liked the fact that the Curtiss planes were durable—able to withstand clumsy landings and forced wheels-up
crashes that were inevitably part of the pilot learning process.
An interesting feature of the P-40 is its main landing gear. Upon retraction, the legs swing aft and rotate 90-degrees, allowing the plane’s wheels to sit flat within the wing.
Mechanically, they were a bit of a nightmare for the Russians. Besides the faulty engine parts, the Russians had no documentation besides a few worn English manuals, which they translated each night using a dictionary. There were no real spare parts or engines, leading the Russians to mix parts from damaged planes to make as many serviceable fighters as
possible.
A US Army Curtiss P-40 comes in for landing at an airfield in China. Note that the plane is flying with part of a cowling borrowed from another Tomahawk, giving the fighter two sets of eyes.
The P-40 wears the insignia of the Nationalist Chinese forces. Though it is not the politest way to describe it, the American men who joined the Flying Tigers were, by definition, mercenaries.
Also, the planes were found unsuitable for Russia’s terribly low temperatures. Below
minus thirty-eight degrees Celsius, oil, hydraulics, even antifreeze, froze. This prompted the mechanics to install special petcocks on the planes to fully drain the liquids at night.
One group of aircraft had thirty-eight burst radiators, leading mechanics to confiscate all the silverware from a nearby town for solder repairs. Batteries exploded, tires ripped on the frozen ground, and various other parts broke constantly.
The FHC plane was assigned to the 147 IAP VVS 14 Army (147th Fighter Regiment,
Fourteenth Army). This group flew P-40s and Lend-Lease Hurricanes.
Aircraft 194 ran into trouble with Sr. Lt. N. V. Jurilin at the controls on February 5, 1942. The engine quit and the pilot had to belly-land the plane near Murmansk. The pilot was unhurt, but the plane was considered thirty to fifty percent damaged. Other aircraft became donors to 194, which received a new engine and many other parts from British
Tomahawk IIb aircraft. While the P-40 was out of service, the 147 IAP became the 20
GIAP (20th Guards Fighter Regiment). The plane returned to the front lines on July 12, 1942.
One flyer in the 20 GIAP had participated in an amazing mission before the FHC
aircraft returned to service. Flight commander Lt. Aleksey Khlobystov had rammed two
Messerschmitts with his Tomahawk and lived to tell the tale. Using his right wing, the
wing without the pitot tube, he had overtaken a group of Bf 110s and severed the tail of one, sending it spinning to the ground. He had then passed an attacking Bf 109 head-on, hitting it with the same right wing tip. It crashed too. Khlobystov’s plane carried the tactical number “58.”
As Germany and Great Britain fought it out in the air in Europe, it became clear that American fighters needed more protection for their pilots. Here you can see a heavy slab of armored glass that was added to the windscreen of the Tomahawk as a quick fix.
The FHC’s plane was found with the number “53” on its fuselage. According to writer
Valeriy Romanenko, it also showed repair work done to its wing tip, presumably after a ramming attack. Today, no evidence of ramming attacks is readily apparent on the aircraft.
On the afternoon of September 27, 1942, Russian flying units in the area were attacked by around eighteen German Bf 109s. Various groups in the area fielded five Hurricanes, a P-39, and nine P-40s to intercept. The latter were from the 20 GIAP, and the FHC P-40
was among them. The planes met at altitudes of four to five thousand meters. In the
dogfights that followed, the Russians claimed to have destroyed three Bf 109s for the loss of four Soviet aircraft: a Hurricane shot down; another Hurricane crash-landed; a P-40
from which the pilot bailed out; and the loss of aircraft 194, the FHC plane.
Major Ermakov, flying 194, belly-landed his aircraft in the snow. The crash did very
little damage to the plane besides crumpling the nose and the leading edges of the wings.
The pilot, or others appear to have taken the plane’s radio and left the scene. The aircraft sat relatively undisturbed in that remote location for fifty years.
It was found in the bleak Russian landscape in the early 1990s with the use of satellite photography. Upon investigation, the plane showed evidence of small caliber bullet
damage to the tail and wings, as well as a “fresh” wound to the fighter’s oil tank—the probable reason for the crash during that last combat. The aircraft, however, was almost completely intact, including its machine guns.
It was lifted from the site by helicopter and shipped to the United Kingdom where it
was eventually purchased by Patina Ltd. and The Fighter Collection at Duxford. They, in turn, sent the aircraft to Fighter Rebuilders in Chino, California for restoration in 1993.
By late 1998, the fighter flew for the first time after the full restoration, with Steve Hinton at the controls. The plane was given a semi-permanent “Hollywood” paint scheme
of Flying Tigers pilot Erik Schilling in anticipation of a visit by the veteran flyer. Schilling wrote later on his website: “Last Friday, I had a most pleasant surprise. There in front of the [Planes of Fame] hangar sat a beautiful P-40C, perfect in every detail. A flood of memories rushed through my mind reminding me of the wonderful Flying Tiger days of
some 57 years ago. Memories that had faded almost into obscurity were now awakened. It was almost like yesterday, as I stared at the awesome beauty of the P-40, and in my mind’s eye I started reliving the experience of Burma and China. Standing there and looking at the Curtiss Hawk, I’m convinced it was the prettiest fighter ever built.”
Many Japanese aircraft wore distinctive yellow wing leading edges so that pilots could sort friend from foe in a split second.
The P-40C was purchased by the FHC in March 1999. In mid-2011, the temporary
paint scheme was removed and a permanent AVG paint scheme was applied. The plane
now represents “Number 7” of the 1st Pursuit Squadron, which was flown by Robert H.
Neale, a Seattle resident who became the AVG’s top scoring ace with thirteen air-to-air victories.
The less unneeded equipment a plane hauled around, the better it performed in a dogfight. One example of spartan design in the Oscar was the “pilot’s pull.” A simple metal cord with a woven leather covering helped a flyer climb the plane’s steep wing.
It was more primitive than a stirrup or foothold, but it worked—and it weighed next to nothing.
The Nakajima Ki-43 Oscar was designed as a replacement for the Ki-27 army fighter, a
fixed-gear monoplane that first flew in 1936. Western designers often ignored Japanese aircraft and engine designs, believing them to be poor copies of European and American creations. However, they had to admit the Nakajima Ki-27 was an exception that would
soon, briefly, become the rule. The completely indigenous Ki-27 was as good, if not better, than many contemporary fighters of the era.
The Japanese Army Air Force (JAAF) soon wanted to take the next step in the
evolution of this fighter design but the proposed new fighter would live in the shadow of
the old. The JAAF wanted an interceptor/escort that was comparable or, preferably,
superior to the Ki-27 in every way—speed, maneuverability, climb rate, and range. It
assigned the task to Nakajima Hikoki K.K. and its engineer Hideo Itokawa.
Itokawa envisioned a plane that would be thinner and longer than the pudgy Ki-27. The
new aircraft would be quite similar in construction to contemporary fighters of the time—
an all-metal, low-wing, cantilever monoplane with stressed skin and an enclosed cockpit.
The real difficulty for designers centered on improving both the speed and
maneuverability over the Ki-27. In simple terms, one could be increased, but only at the expense of the other.
The Oscar’s Type 89 gunsight had a long shaft down its side that was attached to the bullet-shaped nosecone. During hours of flying, the cone helped keep the sight’s lens free of oil and dirt. A pilot could turn a lever in the cockpit which rotated the sight’s cover out of the way for combat.
The FHC’s Oscar is the only Type I Nakajima Ki-43 left in the world today. Visitors often confuse the Japanese army plane with its contemporary, the A6M Zero naval fighter.
This image shows the FHC’s Oscar the day it was captured by Australian soldiers in 1945. After suffering damage to its engine and propeller, Japanese mechanics had secreted it away into the jungle to make repairs.
From the beginning, Itokawa planned to use the latest and most powerful Nakajima
radial engine and integrate a fully retractable main landing gear. The Ki-43 would be
faster than the Ki-27, of this there was no doubt. He gave the fighter a big wing and low wing loading to maximize maneuverability. The JAAF’s specifications did not demand
self-sealing fuel tanks, pilot armor, or the need for heavy armament—by omitting these items, the plane could stay nimble in the skies.
The first test flights of the new plane in 1939 brought disappointment. The Ki-43 was
lethargic compared to the Ki-27, and some suggested abandoning the project and sticking with the older aircraft. Others wanted to lock the landing gear down permanently.
Designers responded with slightly longer wings and, most importantly, a revised flap
system.
One of the Ki-43’s most distinctive features is the “combat flap.” Nicknamed “butterfly flaps” by American observers, the paddle-shaped flaps could be deployed while the fighter was in flight, creating more lift, a tighter turn rate, and improved flight control response.
When the pilots of the AVG encountered Ki-43s over China, which they often thought
were Zero fighters, they avoided getting into a turning match with the lighter more agile Japanese plane and its revolutionary flaps. To ignore Claire Chennault’s doctrine was
suicide.
An American soldier shot this image of an Oscar abandoned at an island airfield. It appears GIs have already started to chop out pieces of the fighter’s skin to take home as souvenirs.
Brilliant range, climb rate, and turning ability came at a steep price to a Japanese pilot at the controls of a Ki-43. Lack of protection and light armament made the Oscar’s
encounters with powerful American fighters equipped with heavy .50-caliber guns an
often fatal experience. Newer models of the Ki-43 attempted to rectify some of the
fighter’s weaknesses, but the existing airframe allowed no room for the wholesale changes that would have made the plane significantly more competitive. During the first six
months of the war in the Pacific, the Oscar was almost always outclassed.
The Ki-43 served the JAAF through the end of the war, though it was often the
underdog. By 1945, many of the planes were being used as advanced trainers while others took on the job of suicide aircraft as Allied navies closed in on the home islands of Japan.
The FHC Oscar is a very rare fighter—the only surviving Ki-43 Type I in the world.
The plane was the 650th Oscar produced. Little is known about the fighter between the
time it left Japan in November 1942 and ended up on Rabaul. It was most likely
dispatched to Truk, in the Caroline Islands, and then used to reinforce the 1st or 11th Sentai, both of which moved to Rabaul in late 1942, or early 1943.
The plane spent most of 1943 and 1944 in combat operations, before suffering a failed
landing at Vunakanau Airfield on Rabaul sometime in 1945. The Oscar had a damaged
engine and propeller and, due to increased pressure from American bombing units in the area, it was transported miles away from the runways and hidden among the trees for a
prolonged series of repairs.
Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) personnel occupied the area after the war. In
September 1945, RAAF Squadron Leader Dennis Hamilton heard rumors of a nearly
intact Oscar in the area and decided to locate it. His diary states: “We searched for aircraft in good condition, but only found some almost hidden now by the growth and all have
been stripped of usable parts. An Oscar had been assembled some 3 or 4 miles from the
strip and will have to be dismantled and reassembled at the strip, the whole operation taking about a week to complete.
“The location of the Army Repair unit is very carefully concealed in jungle and would
be most difficult to detect from the air. There is only foot tracks leading to each aircraft and no roads to give their positions away. Besides this, each aircraft is covered in
camouflage netting.
Studying fuzzy black and white photos of the Oscar, restorers decided the chevrons on the rear fuselage must be white. When Japanese vets began to visit the project in New Zealand, they told the builders that they recalled the chevrons being yellow.
Soon after, the color of the markings were changed.
A distinctive trait of early model Oscars was their intricate annular oil cooler mounted in front of their radial engines. Later versions of the plane had an additional scoop and a less complex cooler located inside the cowling.
The cockpit of the Oscar shows a blue green metallic paint, called aotake. The unusual color was added to the semi-transparent anti-corrosion covering to help assure that it was applied to every part of the plane’s interior.
“I managed to find the Oscar hidden some distance from the strip again and found three men working on it. Vahry was able to get a photograph of it with the men.”
The plan was to remove the airplane and fly the fighter to the airfield at Jacquinot Bay in New Britain. However, things didn’t go as desired. Hamilton relates: “The Oscar has now been almost completely reassembled at the strip and looks as if it should be ready to fly in a couple of days. The Japanese have sent a message that it is not actually serviceable and we interviewed an engineer warrant officer out there. It is difficult to tell whether they actually are unable to repair it completely and I am inclined to think that they just don’t want to fly it.”
In any case, by December 1945, Hamilton got tired of waiting and had the plane crated
and shipped to Australia. Under the jurisdiction of the War Department, the crate sat
untouched for years. It was offered to the Australian War Memorial Museum in Canberra
and accepted on July 14, 1949.
The Oscar was not considered as rare as it is today and the museum chose not to keep
it, selling the plane to R. G. Curtis of Sydney in 1953. Curtis, in turn, sold it to Sid Marshall in 1962. The new owner stored the plane suspended in his hangar at Bakerstown Airport. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s the plane passed through many hands, ending up with Tim Wallis in 1994.
This image shows the FHC’s Oscar during restoration. Workers carefully marked the locations of the plane’s original insignia before removing the deteriorating paint. Note the rectangular bullet hole patches in the tail. They are still visible today.
The plane had a lot of exterior damage—both from bullets and shrapnel, as well as
scars from being carelessly transported over the years. As a complete restoration
commenced, much more battle damage became apparent. Removing panels and skins,
restorers found damage that had been quickly fixed in the field with lockwires and hasty patches.
Also apparent were the faint lightning bolt of the 11th Sentai on the tail and three
chevrons over the rear of the fuselage. Interviews with JAAF personnel revealed that the red lightning flash on the tail signified the 11th Sentai’s 2nd Squadron. The chevrons were faded so thoroughly that no one knew their real color. They were originally painted white during the restoration. Japanese veterans visiting the project told the restorers that the chevrons would have been yellow, and that the three stripes were carried on the plane
assigned to the third flying position. The chevrons were painted yellow the following day.
By September 1995, the Ki-43 was pushed outside and filled with one hundred liters of
fuel. On the second try, the Oscar’s overhauled engine caught and fired, running for the first time in over fifty years.
The plane was taxied, but “not flown,” for the public at the Warbirds Over Wanaka air
show in 1996. Photographs of the event show the aircraft with its gear definitely off the grass by as much as three feet. The aircraft appeared at the premier New Zealand aircraft exhibition throughout the late 1990s. In December 1999, the Oscar was sold to the FHC.
It is one of the few aircraft at the FHC that does not fly regularly. Tim Wallis’s wife, Prue Wallis, wrote: “Although operationally it would be quite possible to render the plane
flyable, it is likely that the Hayabusa will never leave the ground again. The value of the aircraft far outweighs the gamble—to lose the Oscar through misadventure would be to
lose an entirely unique part of Japanese and World War II history.”
The Oscar’s “butterfly flaps” helped generate lift and improved stability at low speeds by increasing the fighter’s wing area, further tightening the Oscar’s already tight turning radius. With these flaps deployed, there was no way a P-39 or P-40 flyer could compete with the Ki-43 in a turning duel.