P40.. an alternative skin i'd love to see one day..

[SKurj]

I haven't got any images scanned in at the moment, but I always see the flying Tigers P40 paint scheme on the damn things in any sim.  I'd love to see the colour scheme which had the skull on the nose.

Anyone have any colour scans?

AKskurj

[Sundog]

CC That Skurj! Besides, I think the ones with the Skulls were mostly P-40N's? We would need the late war variant to fit in with AH anyway...and that would be a cool scheme!

SD

[-tronski-]

this one?

 

-tronski-
486 Sqn (NZ)

[juzz]

11th FS, 343rd FG - based in the Aleutians. That's an "Aleutian Tiger" featured in the noseart.

The bigass skull noseart was from a unit based in India iirc.

[This message has been edited by juzz (edited 12-24-2000).]

[Replicant]

Hi Skurj

Most of the Flying Tiger P40s were ex-RAF hence most had RAF camoflage scheme and the Shark teeth.  Some still carried the RAF serial numbers.

Regards

Nexx

[GRUNHERZ]

Hi

Im not so sure that the AVG P40s were RAF. However the AVG did get the idea to paint the shark-mouth pattern on their P40s from the British. The British had their P40s in North Africa painted up with shark-mouths after they saw them on Bf-110s over Greece in the fighting of early 1941.

thanks GRUNHERZ

[SKurj]

Dats not it tronski.

I am not sure but i think they may have been quite dark in colour, with a white skull in profile on either side of the nose.

AKskruj

[GRUNHERZ]

Hi

Is this it?

 http://www.tholianweb.com/cgi-bin/decals.pl?scale=48&setid=150&dbs=aeromaster&pgs=2&currpg=1&dclimg=ad48150

[Replicant]

Grunherz,

I have a book "Lend Lease Aircraft in WW2" which follows all aircraft that came under Lend Lease to Great Britain.

It mentions a fair bit about the P40 since it was one of the first aircraft to be leased.

Britain released 100 Tomahawk IIBs to the AVG 'which adopted the famous shark's teeth nose emblem originating with the RAF which used the markings on its Tomahawks in North Africa during 1940'.

I also have a photo of an RAF Hawker Demon somewhere which has a shark's teeth emblem and dates back to the 1930s.

Many P40s were transfered from the RAFs Lend Lease order (most were removed from RAF service, some went direct) to other countries... USSR, South Africa, Netherlands East Indies, neutral Turkey, Brazil, China, and Egypt.  One single P40M was captured by the Finnish Air Force and used against the Russians.  Commonwealth countries obviously used the RAF allotted aircraft too.

Regards

Nexx




[This message has been edited by Replicant (edited 12-24-2000).]

[GRUNHERZ]

Hi

CC might be so, I said I wasnt sure of AVG aircraft origins, however the shark-mouth thing is true they copied it from the 110s in greece during early 1941. They were painted on II/ZG76 which was known as the "Haifisch Gruppe" Haifisch is German for shark. Anyway this shark enblem was then copied by the folks in 112 Squadron for their Tomahawks, and somehow found its way to the AVG, I think they saw it on the cover of a british army magazine.

[M.C.202]

The A.V.G. (Flying Tigers) were first equiped with late (the last?) P-40B types, fresh from
the factory. The airframes were released by the Brits, to be replaced by later "better" P-40's.
The wing guns were .303 or 8mm (7.92), depending on the plane.
The engines were built from over-run/out of spec parts as no ready built engines were around.
The engines were in effect "blueprinted" and offered higher HP than the book said.
Where did I get this info?
From a Flying Tiger, Eric Shilling. He can be found on the rec.avaition.millitary news group.

------------------
M.C.202
Dino in Reno

[Sundog]

According to `Wings of Fame', Vol. 9, on the Flying Tigers, many of the pilots and the news people called their first birds P-40s, however, they were in fact, Hawk 81A-2 (It also states they were `factory fresh'). The differences stated are that the Hawk 81A-2 had self-sealing fuel tanks, which the P-40B didn't and the P-40B could be equipped with a DT which the Hawk wasn't equipped to carry.

SD

Ref: P-40


[This message has been edited by Sundog (edited 12-24-2000).]

[M.C.202]

Sundog said:
> ...they were in fact, Hawk 81A-2 (It also states they were `factory fresh'). The
> differences stated are that the Hawk 81A-2 had self-sealing fuel tanks, which the P-40B
> didn't and the P-40B could be equipped with a DT which the Hawk wasn't equipped to carry.
     
Eric said thet tank sealing system was not the same, external rather than internal (I think).
 It was a change-over type, with a mix of features.
I will try to find a link on his statements.

------------------
M.C.202
Dino in Reno

[M.C.202]

Got it!
Go to http://www.johnco.cc.ks.us/~droberts/p40/p40a.html

and look for "Erik Shilling comments on the powerplants in AVG P-40s".

He states:
"Their similarity in numbering cause the
confusion, one was the H81A-2 which was the model flown by the AVG, and similar to the US Army's P-40B."
and "The other model's number was the H81-A2, a very subtle change, but this was the model similar to the US Army's P-40C."

Good stuff on the tank sealing and bomb rack belly tank.
Will AH  AVG birds get the proper engines when modeled? :-)
Buy his book, he was there, did it all, and is selling the T-shirt :-).


------------------
M.C.202
Dino in Reno

[Sundog]

Here's the scheme Skurj was alluding to:

P-40 Skull

SD

Addendum: Cool link MC.202 on the P-40..thanks!

[This message has been edited by Sundog (edited 12-24-2000).]