RAF P-40 found in desert

[Big W]

Hard to believe that something like this can be found untouched this day and age...amazing

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ra-desert.html

I hope they eventually find the pilots remains and return them to his country

[DC_MPA]

Those war hawks were neat airplanes. Usually forgotten as people too often see the p51 mustang as the plane of power in WWII.

[jd_1138]

Wow, I am surprised at how well-preserved it is. The article says it wasn't buried in the sand at any point, which I kind of find hard to believe, but who knows? They recently found a nearly perfectly preserved Revolutionary War era British war ship in Lake Ontario. HMS Ontario which sunk in 1780. The cold fresh water preserved the boat.

[Krona Kruiser]

That's the stories that bring history to life.

[DC_MPA]

Ever look into the airplane graveyard? It's a massive parcel of land were the government have everything from jetliners to B-17 and B-29 bombers. Learned up at Oshkosh that they have them all there because the dry desert preserves them very well.

Frustrating why we can't get a few more flying. FIFI the only B-29 flying is a heartbeat away from being lost due to a mishap.

[Mako72]

Ever look into the airplane graveyard? It's a massive parcel of land were the government have everything from jetliners to B-17 and B-29 bombers. Learned up at Oshkosh that they have them all there because the dry desert preserves them very well.

Frustrating why we can't get a few more flying. FIFI the only B-29 flying is a heartbeat away from being lost due to a mishap.

I could be wrong but I don't believe they had planes that old when I visited in '03. Most of the planes now are from the 60s and 70s. If there are older ones they are probably being stored at AMARC for Pima Air Museum(or other military museums). AMARC generally take the planes they have and strip parts off aircraft as needed to rebuild for sale to the countries that still operate those older aircraft. Others are stored and get brought back to life like the A-10s did after we went into Iraq. There is also a commercial aviation version of the boneyard over in SoCal, iirc.

But I am hear ya. I used to volunteer at an air museum and there is a catch 22. Some older planes are getting so rare that they shouldn't be flown anymore as many flying examples are the last of their kind. But on the other hand they are Warbirds and they belong in the sky.

[DC_MPA]

Seriously!? Dang... My dad told me of the times flying over and visiting when it was gut wrenching seeing all of the gems of the bombers and fighters just sitting pickeled row after row.

That stinks!

[raisindot]

Wow! That's pretty amazing. It just shows you how with all the satellites and mapping and GPSes going all the time there are certain places on this planet where something can still be lost and perhaps never found (like the body of the billion balloon guy whose plane went down somewhere in the western U.S.)

[cb91710]

Ya, Pima museum has an impressive collection (most not flyable), but the boneyard outside of Tucson is all more current... recently retired inventory. Might be some F4's remaining, but for the most part it's a lot of F16, A10, B52, C130 and jet transport. I don't think there's anything left out there with radial engines.

The problem with looking to the graveyard for restoration projects is the parts needed. I live near the Chino airport, home of the "Planes of Fame" museum and base for a LOT of flying WWII birds, and I've watched a lot of these restorations.
These are complete rebuilds and the FAA recertifies them as a zero-hour airframe. It's not just a matter of pulling the white plastic off of the plexi, kick the tires, and light the fires.
The engines and most of the avionics have been removed... pretty much anything that could be used to keep another bird flying was.
Museum pieces that are delivered when the aircraft is still active are not flyable... spars are cut.
There was a big to-do at Chino when they took delivery of their pair of F106's. A couple of months later, a USAF crew showed up and the birds were shuffled into a guarded hangar while they were de-mil'd.

[DC_MPA]

That's what I was thinking about. The boneyard in Tucson.

[the beav]

Hard to believe that something like this can be found untouched this day and age...amazing

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ra-desert.html

I hope they eventually find the pilots remains and return them to his country

Very nice, thanks. Most people associate the P-40 with the Flying Tigers, but they actually got a lot of use in the desert campaigns as well and even some later use in the Italian campaign.

[The Kiwi]

Very nice, thanks. Most people associate the P-40 with the Flying Tigers, but they actually got a lot of use in the desert campaigns as well and even some later use in the Italian campaign.

Curtiss's designers had hit a roadblock coming up with anything modern to sell to the military, and kept producing P-40s long after they were badly outstripped by everything else, simply because they had a great deal of manufacturing capacity (they should have been forced to build someone else's designs, but had too much political clout for that). They hardly did any better for the Navy, with their SB2C Helldiver being a terrible disappointment overall.

Early in the US participation in WW2, at Guadalcanal, the P-39 and P-40 were both badly outclassed by the frontline Japanese planes, but America's Air Corps didn't have anything better in production, and those poor designs had to fill the gap. They were well armored, so the death rates of the pilots weren't comparable to losses of airplanes (unlike the prevailing Japanese attitude, with many of their pilots refusing to wear parachutes, and protective armor practically nonexistent in their planes).

[Black Adder]

Sound a lot like the "Lady Be Good," the B-24 found in Libya by an oil exploration team in the 1950's.

More things like this might start to show up in the future.

Don

[BallisticBurrito]

There's still a bunch of P-38's frozen under ice in the arctic..damn near pristine condition.

[craig87c]

Don't forget about the 20 Spitfires discovered in Burma/Myanmar

[oldspiceboy]

I just read that the location of the P-40 got out to the locals who are now in the process of stripping it down. As a plane nut that makes me freaking angry. Such a shame.

[the beav]

Curtiss's designers had hit a roadblock coming up with anything modern to sell to the military, and kept producing P-40s long after they were badly outstripped by everything else, simply because they had a great deal of manufacturing capacity (they should have been forced to build someone else's designs, but had too much political clout for that). They hardly did any better for the Navy, with their SB2C Helldiver being a terrible disappointment overall.

Early in the US participation in WW2, at Guadalcanal, the P-39 and P-40 were both badly outclassed by the frontline Japanese planes, but America's Air Corps didn't have anything better in production, and those poor designs had to fill the gap. They were well armored, so the death rates of the pilots weren't comparable to losses of airplanes (unlike the prevailing Japanese attitude, with many of their pilots refusing to wear parachutes, and protective armor practically nonexistent in their planes).

Very interesting...thanks.

[Big W]

I just read that the location of the P-40 got out to the locals who are now in the process of stripping it down. As a plane nut that makes me freaking angry. Such a shame.

You have to be kidding me, for real?

[Dio]

"Probably the best Kittyhawk variant to enter RAF service was the P-4ON as the Kittyhawk IV. With a top speed of 378 mph the variant still could not compete with the most modern German aircraft but it proved to be useful as a ground attack aircraft and RAF received 586.
Lacking a two-stage supercharger made the type inferior to Luftwaffe fighters, such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109 or the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, in high-altitude combat and so was rarely used in operations in Europe. Between 1941 and 1944, however, the P-40 played a critical role with Allied air forces in three major theatres of operation: North Africa, the Southwest Pacific and China. The Kittyhawk was the RAF’s main fighter of the British Commonwealth squadrons of the Desert Air Force (DAF) during the first half of 1942 (until the arrival of "tropicalized" Supermarine Spitfires) and although the type was a match for most Axis aircraft present in North Africa at the time the type was badly outclassed by the Bf 109F. Although many of the Kittyhawk squadrons used in North Africa reequipped with Spitfires and Mustangs for the invasion of Italy the type did serve in the campaign, mainly in the ground attack role."

http://plane-crazy.purplecloud.net/A.../kittyhawk.htm



This is the one at RAF Hendon in London.

[The Kiwi]

I always thought that the P-40F, equipped with a Packard Merlin, instead of the Allison, was better, mostly because of the greatly improved power to weight ratio, whether or not the supercharger was dual-stage on the engine.