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| Curtiss P-40N Warhawk |
 Gen. Charlie Bond, Jr.
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| SPECIFICATIONS |
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| ENGINE |
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Allison V 1710-115 1,460 h.p. |
| ARMAMENT |
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Six .50 cal. machine guns & up to 500 lbs. of ordnance |
| WING SPAN |
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37 feet, 3.5 inches |
| LENGTH |
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37 feet, 6 inches |
| HEIGHT |
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12 feet, 4.5 inches |
| MAX TAKEOFF WEIGHT |
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8,850 pounds |
| MANUFACTURED BY |
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Curtiss-Wright |
| TOTAL BUILT |
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Roughly 15,000 |
| TOTAL EXISTING |
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Approximately 90 |
| FIRST BUILT |
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1940 |
| MUSEUM'S AIRCRAFT BUILT |
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May 1944 |
| MAXIMUM SPEED |
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378 m.p.h. |
| RANGE |
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240 miles |
| SERVICE CEILING |
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38,000 feet |
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Built by Curtiss-Wright, the P-40 Warhawk was the U.S Army Air Force's standard fighter at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Although it could
not match the performance of the Japanese A6M Zero or the German Me-109, the P-40's strong construction and heavy armament made it a competent foe
for any Axis aircraft. Operating as part of the Chinese Air Force over mainland China, the American Volunteer Group (A.V.G.) -- better known as
“The Flying Tigers” -- used their P-40s to win victories over nearly 300 Japanese planes from June 1941 to July 1942, while losing only
12 of their own in aerial combat.
Curtiss-Wright developed the P-40 Warhawk in the late 1930s to replace the Curtiss P-36. The XP-40 was basically a P-36 airframe refitted with an
Allison V-1710 in-line engine instead of the P-36's Pratt and Whitney radial. In this configuration, the XP-40 boasted a top speed of 342 mph and beat
both the Bell P-39 Airacobra and the Lockheed P-38 Lightning in the 1939 Army Air Corps (AAC) fighter fly-off. Though outdated by 1941, the P-40 saw
extensive action in China, India, North Africa, Egypt, Russia and the Pacific. The aircraft received great acclaim from those who flew it. According to
one P-40 pilot: “We couldn't outmaneuver [the Japanese] fighters, but we could out-dive them, and the Hawk would take more punishment than anything
we met. It was a sturdy, fine airplane.” The P-40N was the last and fastest production variant of the Warhawk. By reducing the overall weight of
the design, Curtiss managed to increase the P-40N's overall top speed to 378 mph. The P-40N was also fitted with a new canopy improving the pilot's
visibility to the rear. A total of 5,219 P-40Ns were built making it the most numerous of the P-40 series.
The Cavanaugh Flight Museum's P-40N (serial number 44-7396) was constructed at the Curtiss-Wright plant in Buffalo, New York and was delivered to the
Army Air Force (AAF.) on May 26,1944. The plane was sent in June 1944 to Peterson Army Air Field, Colorado Springs, Colorado and served with the
268th AAF Base Unit (Combat Crew Training Station-Fighter, Second Air Force). In March 1945, the aircraft was transferred to the 232nd AAF Base
Unit (2nd A.F.), stationed at the Dalhart Army Air Field (Texas). In June 1945, the plane was disposed as surplus.
The P-40N was purchased by the museum in 1995 from Joseph Mabee, who had owned the aircraft since 1978. Today, the aircraft is painted in the scheme
of Major General Charles R. Bond, Jr.'s No. 5 and is representative of P-40Bs and P-40Es flown by the Flying Tigers in the early days of World War II.
The aircraft often appears at air shows across the country.
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