P-40? How good vs Me 109, Spitfire, Hurricane, etc.??????

[Jack Cook]

I had a really good friend who flew the P-40F and the M in combat from Guadalcanal.
We went to a airshow once and spent some time with Tom Camp who the flying the Paul's
TP-40N. A bunch of people gathered around and started asking Cy questions about P-40
flying. Taking all these questions, he answered all of them with one answer. "The only things
I ever cared about were #1 how tight could it turn, #2 how fast it dove, #3 how much firepower
it had and #4 how big was that piece of steel protecting my back"! The rest he considered
irrelevent because unless you were the better pilot what plane you were flying didn't matter.

[Bill Greenwood]

Mike,The Spit pilot notes give fuel gph at 40 imperial or 48 U S gph, at 28/2000 or exactly the same as you give for the P-40.
Your indicated 208 mph at 9000 is a true airspeed of 226 mph, ( add 2% of 9000 to indicated). So my Spitfire would be about 15 or 20 mph faster at the same power, it seems.

I wonder what the max dive speed is for a P-40. I am pretty sure they could dive away from a Zero, doubt if they could a 109. Given time and room to accelerate a Spitfire will catch any piston fighter in a max dive. They test dove them to over .9 mach.

[Bill Greenwood]

Jack, catch me in person sometime and I can tell you some great Tom Camp stories. I can think of 4 right now; 1 I been told about, 1 I saw myself, and 2 Tom told me himself. And you can ask him about his visit to area 51, he can tell it better than I can.

John Paul, aren't you guys building up a Merlin engine P-40? If so which engine, and when will it be flying? It would be interesting to hear your opinion of the two versions after you get some time in it. And have you heard the area 51 story?

[John-Curtiss Paul]

No Merlin powered P-40's here Bill. If I ever get the chance to fly one though I'd be happy to share my thoughts!

I do know the Area 51 story. Tom was flying our P-40N when it happened.

JC

[gemmer]

I find it interesting how the myth about P-40s fighting Zeros(as in A6M) in the CBI still persists to today, when in truth there were few encounters between those aircraft and almost certainly none during the AVG's tenure. The generic term "Zero" for any radial engine fighter was common early in the war. Our first "ace" Buzz Wagner was touted as nailing 5 Zeros in the Philippines, when actually(if he really did get five) they were fixed gear KI-27s. By mid 1942, the 5th Air Force had the fighter ID mystery figured out, but in China the retractable gear KI-43 continued to be refered to as a Zero. Old habits die hard as illustrated by Tex Hills comments.

Duane

[Bill Greenwood]

John Paul,I just thought of another Tom story, this one definitely not for public consumption, but of all the funny, uninhibited, far out aviation stories and one of a kind characters I know of, I think this takes the prize. Maybe we'll get a chance to share it sometime, not sure we have ever met. Tom was on his way back from the airshow we used to have here when he visited area 51. Surely all those restricted signs don't apply to everyone do they, and anyone would love to see a vintage fighter? Once while he was here, he had to catch the airline out for a day for one of his business accounts, with an order of nuns actually. Tom had on his 3 piece suit, and looked like the most ordinary boring guy you could ever meet. I haven't seen Tom in years since I don't get to the Ca shows anymore, and rarely Reno.

I am pretty sure I read on WIX that someone was building up a Merlin P-40, maybe down under.
Another brief P-40 story, from Jeff Ethel, re Rudy. Rudy flew his P-40 for years, loved it and was very comfortable with it. He got the Spitfire, and would land it with no problems, it would roll out straight, but Rudy thought it was harder. If you watched him land the P-40, he'd have a lot of rudder input to keep it straight, but was so used to it that he wasn't aware of the corrections.

[Bill Greenwood]

As for Zeros, Tex told me that story himself, when we were sitting in Howard's house at Breckenridge.
Until evidence to the contrary, I'll believe Tex. I don't know the dates he meant, but there were certainly Zeros at Pearl Harbor and Midway.

[Nathan]

Zero was a generic name given to all Japanese fighters of ww2. But again the A6M2/5 was called both Zeke and Zero. The AVG fought mostly against the Imperial Army with Ki-27's and Ki-43's. Pearl Harbor and Midway saw the use of the A6M2 Zero by the Japanese Navy.

[Nathan]

John Paul,I just thought of another Tom story, this one definitely not for public consumption, but of all the funny, uninhibited, far out aviation stories and one of a kind characters I know of, I think this takes the prize. Maybe we'll get a chance to share it sometime, not sure we have ever met. Tom was on his way back from the airshow we used to have here when he visited area 51. Surely all those restricted signs don't apply to everyone do they, and anyone would love to see a vintage fighter? Once while he was here, he had to catch the airline out for a day for one of his business accounts, with an order of nuns actually. Tom had on his 3 piece suit, and looked like the most ordinary boring guy you could ever meet. I haven't seen Tom in years since I don't get to the Ca shows anymore, and rarely Reno.

I am pretty sure I read on WIX that someone was building up a Merlin P-40, maybe down under.
Another brief P-40 story, from Jeff Ethel, re Rudy. Rudy flew his P-40 for years, loved it and was very comfortable with it. He got the Spitfire, and would land it with no problems, it would roll out straight, but Rudy thought it was harder. If you watched him land the P-40, he'd have a lot of rudder input to keep it straight, but was so used to it that he wasn't aware of the corrections.

[Dave Hadfield]

Bill,

To tell the truth, Stocky preferred to fight in a Spitfire. No one likes to be at the bottom of a "bounce" all the time.

I haven't flown either the Spitfire or the Hurricane. But one of our pilots, Rob Erdos, has flown the "hat trick" -- Spit, Hurri, and 109 all in one year. And this year he got checked out in the P-40. He's also the Chief Test Pilot at the National Research Council in Ottawa, so superberbly qualified to comment.

Regarding fuel burn, yes, when you put a second cockpit in place of the fuselage tank, you get limited. We have a belly tank, like John Paul, but since we don't want to drop it on the Canadian countryside, it's not always such a handy thing. If I arrive at an airshow with it I have to remove it, and thus it has to be empty, and I need another set of hands (which I don't always have). Easier to make an enroute fuel stop.

Here's the page out of the P-40N manual.



I fly it according to the bottom right corner. I get a little better performance because we have a V-1710-81A engine, and the "A" means a slightly smaller supercharger ratio. This translates to reduced high altitude performance, which I don't need, for less supercharger load on the crankshaft at low altitudes and power settings, which I do need.

Judy Pay has a Merlin P-40 down under.

Dave

[Mike Halbrook]

There are pictures of Judy Pay's P-40F in the back of "Squadron Signal P-40 in Action #205". Says it is displayed at The Old Aeroplane Company in Tyabb, near Melbourne Australia.
I've seen pictures of it in flight on the net but can't find them at the moment. As far as "getting bounced" it seems the F and L models performed better at altitude, but the rate of climb was still well bellow other contemporary fighters.

[gemmer]

As for Zeros, Tex told me that story himself, when we were sitting in Howard's house at Breckenridge.
Until evidence to the contrary, I'll believe Tex. I don't know the dates he meant, but there were certainly Zeros at Pearl Harbor and Midway.

I wasn't infering that Tex Hill made up a story about fighting the A6M Zero. Rather, I was using his statement as an example of how all Japanese retractable gear radial engine fighters were refered to as "Zeros" in the CBI. There were very few Japanese naval aircraft of any type in China. The Zero was put through a combat evaluation there in 1940, and then withdrawn.

Duane

[Rossco]

There are pictures of Judy Pay's P-40F in the back of "Squadron Signal P-40 in Action #205". Says it is displayed at The Old Aeroplane Company in Tyabb, near Melbourne Australia.

I think it,s a two seater as well....
For combat below 15,000 feet between a P40 and MkV Spit there wasn,t much to seperate them.Here in Auss they did a mock combat during WW2.Will see if I can grab the results.
For survivability I,ve seen a pic of a P40 with about 5 foot of wing missing after it has flown back to Darwin from a raid in the islands.Hit a palm tree IIRC..Try that in a Spit or Me109...

[JDK]

I am pretty sure I read on WIX that someone was building up a Merlin P-40, maybe down under.

Judy Pay's P-40F VH-HWK, based at Tyabb, Victoria, Australia.

First flight are reported on WIX, plus some pix by Jack Cook.
viewtopic.php?t=28490&start=71

There is another P-40F under rebuild for the Fighter Collection in the UK, being done at Precision Aerospace at Wangaratta, Victoria. I'm not aware of any other Merlin P40 flyers on the way.

HTH

[DC3R4DC47]

the Ki43,Hayabusa,was no slouch, I may be a bit uninformed, and i realize the creme le' creme were flying the zero-sens,but the oscar gave a good account of itself against all of our frontline fighters during the early innings,but what do I know? i'm just a round engine freightdog guy !!!