Curtiss P-36 Hawk at Flying Legends

The Fighter Collection debuted their P-36 at Flying Legends 2015, with the inaugural UK flight taking place on the Thursday before the show, and here that flight is - watch out for the extremely low pass at the end!

[@renatocamurca2713]

Since my early childhood I was strongly attracted by this warbird,

[@juliannortheast2271]

Perfect color of this fighter and very low pass indeed

[@michaelmoran4174]

It's wonderful to see airplanes like this restored and maintained. I never thought i would anything but pictures and fact sheets about a bird like this. Hats off to the people who do this work!

[@hypedpanther6464]

listen to that baby roar

[@rcwgs]

So, this is the plane whose pilot invented the Cuban 8 ?

[@sebastianmarconi2855]

Tom LaMar That was the Curtiss F11C Goshawk, a biplane.

[@russg1801]

Besides modifying the nose of the fuselage for the Allison V-12, there wasn't a lot of difference between this plane and the P-40. Looks like same wing, tail, landing gear, maybe even the canopy. But, you couldn't paint a shark's mouth behind the radiator opening so it doesn't look as cool! But, as far as owning a 'warbird' aircraft I'll bet the radial engine is cheaper to maintain than the in-line - probably a lot more spare parts available. And I wouldn't sweat a lower top speed or service ceiling since there aren't any Zero's to worry about these days! Probably cheaper on fuel, too.

[@CountArtha]

The P-40 was heavier too, because of its armor and some extra structure added to the wings. The P-40 was created because the Army thought radial engines were a dead end, but the NACA cowling and better coolers brought them back. At one point the Army took a P-40 and put an upgraded, supercharged R-1830 in it, and it was as fast as an F6F Hellcat. Basically a P-36 on steroids!

[@ZeekDuff]

My dad was a crew chief for these at Waycross, GA in 1943 when he knocked up me mother whilst on leave to Lake Charles, LA with his buddy early in the year. This model was always his favorite to work on, said it was the easiest to keep going strong. He was definitely a top-notch mechanic & later a machinist making 1/10th scale model steam engine parts for a ride-on train. I still have the last one of those he was working on, unfortunately I have no idea how to get it running, nor the $$ to spend paying someone who could. It's an interesting conversation piece, and a little smaller than a WWII airplane... 😎