Warbird Information Exchange

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.Did I read somewhere that the original British P-40 Tomahawks had throttles that were backwards from the forward position being full throttle or maybe they were mounted on the right side instead of the left?I cannot remember where I might have read that or just reading too late at night.Thanks.

Sounds perhaps like Curtiss Hawk 81A-1's ordered by the French, but order diverted to the Brits as the Tomahawk I.

The French had acquired Hawk 75A-1's (export version of the P-36) earlier. Throttles were mounted on port wall but operated in reverse (full throttle aft) to Brit/US standard.

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

Yea, the same folks that later came up with airbust.

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Hang The Expense

I had also read about this method of throttle operation on pre-war French aircraft, I didn't realise that imported aircraft had the same arrangement though, interesting.
I wonder if it was just the French that had this throttle configuration or did any other European countries such as Belgium have it ?

Vindicator's built for the French had the same arrangement, the throttles worked in reverse to U.S and British standards.

Didn't the early BF-109's and other german aircraft have that same arrangement?

When I purchased my ex-New Zealand Harvard 11a [AT-6C] NZ 1006 [EX427] had the mixture rigged with idle-cutoff "full forward"....!

British aircraft usually had the mixture set so that full rich was aft, and idle cut off was forward. On the Harvard it was easy to do, can't see why a P-40 would not be any different to rig. The biggest difference would be if they changed the Oxygen system. The british used a low pressure and the US used a high pressure system, that was one of the big differences between a P-39 and a P-400.

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Matt Gunsch, A&P, IA, Warbird maint and restorations
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Until 1940/41, the french build aircraft and the foreign aircraft bought by french government(as H75 and other...), had a inverted throttle,

Pull to increase power and push to decrease.

so "full open"(ouvert) was said by french: "mettre la manette dans la poche"



In this period, the throttle on italian ac was same as french

The Brit-spec Tomahawks were all set up to fly on the left side of the sky.

Clever. Maybe that's why they were so successful. The Japanese were looking for them in the right side of the sky and missed them completely!

Bill