Curtiss P-40 1/72 Scale Models

American P-40B - This is a model of an Army fighter that flew against the Japanese during their invasion of the Philippines beginning in December 1941. The P-40 was the result of a successful experiment to improve the Curtiss P-36 Hawk by replacing its radial engine with a more powerful Allison V-1710 inline engine. There was no practical way, however, to fit a turbocharger on the plane, so the P-40 had poor performance at high altitudes. Below about 15,000 feet, however, it had some strengths, such as its high diving speed. Curtiss called its new fighter the Hawk 81, but it was called the P-40CU by the U.S. Army Air Corps. In April, 1939, with war brewing in Europe, the Army placed an order for 524 P-40CUs, the largest fighter plane order it had ever made, and the first P-40CU's entered U.S. service in May 1940. About 200 had been built by October when the Army asked for changes to be made in the remainder of its order. The Army wanted to adopt some of the modifications the combat tested British were requesting in the P-40s they were buying. The planes resulting from these changes were designated as P-40Bs and P-40Cs.

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British "Tomahawk" Mk.IIB - This is a model of a fighter that flew against Axis forces in North Africa in late 1941. The British and their Commonwealth allies were the first to use P-40s in combat. The initial batch of planes the British bought from the U.S. were originally intended for the French. The French had ordered 230 Curtiss Hawk Model 81s in October, 1939, but the planes weren't delivered before the French surrendered in June, 1940. The British took over the order and the RAF received its initial batch of 140 planes, built to French specifications, in September, 1940. The remainder of the French order, and approximately 950 more planes ordered by the British, were modified to satisfy British requests to make them more combat worthy. The British gave these early export versions of the P-40 the nickname of Tomahawk. Because of their poor high altitude performance, however, the British considered them inadequate for the Western European theater and most of them were sent to North Africa and the Middle East where they replaced the Hawker Hurricane as the RAF's Desert Air Force's primary fighter.

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Chinese Hawk 81A-2 - This is a model of a fighter that helped to resist the Japanese invasion of Burma that began in December 1941. The Chinese were able to purchase 100 P-40s from the U.S. in 1941 after Curtiss assured the British that they could build the Chinese some planes without negatively affecting the production of Tomahawks for the RAF. The Chinese P-40s had unique specifications, but they were comparable to the P-40B. They were flown by the Chinese Air Force's American Volunteer Group (AVG), a unit of American mercenary pilots that became popularly known as the Flying Tigers. It's believed that the Flying Tigers got the idea of painting shark mouths on the fronts of their P-40s from seeing magazine photos of the shark-mouthed Tomahawks being flown by RAF Squadron 112 in North Africa. It's believed the RAF pilots got the idea from the shark mouths painted on the German Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighters they had encountered in Greece in April, 1941.

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American P-40E "Warhawk" - This is a model of an Army fighter that flew against the Japanese over northern Australia and eastern New Guineau in late 1942. The P-40D, not the P-40E, was the first variant to be fitted with a more powerful version of the Allison V-1710 engine, but only a handful were built before production of the P-40E began in 1941. The new engine required the plane's nose to be radically redesigned. This included the elimination of the machine guns on the upper cowling, although the number of wing guns was increased to six. Curtiss considered the plane to be so different from its predecessors that it deserved a new name, the Hawk Model 87. More than 2,300 P-40Es were built, making it the first mass produced P-40 version. It was also the first P-40 with the American nickname of Warhawk. The U.S. Army ordered its first P40-Es in February, 1941, and started receiving them in August. When the U.S. involuntarily entered WWII on December 7, 1941, the P-40 was its most numerous Army fighter plane.

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Soviet "Kittyhawk" Mk.I - This is a model of a fighter that flew against the Germans on the Eastern Front in 1942. The British gave the export version of the P-40D, and all subsequent P-40 models, the nickname of Kittyhawk. The Kittyhawk Mk.I was the first export version of the P-40 to be sent to Allied air forces under the American Lend-Lease Act of March, 1941. The first P-40s the Soviets received, however, were some Tomahawk Mk.IIBs sent to them by the British in late 1941, after Hitler attacked the Soviet Union that summer. By the end of WWII, the Soviets had received more than 2,000 Tomahawks and Kittyhawks from their British and American allies.

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American P-40F "Warhawk" - This is a model of an Army fighter that flew against Axis forces in North Africa in late 1942 and early 1943. The P-40F was an attempt to improve the P-40's high altitude performance by fitting it with a Packard-built British Rolls Royce Merlin engine, which had a two-stage, two-speed supercharger. This experiment had worked wonders for the P-51, and it increased the P-40's operational ceiling by about 5,000 feet. The P-40F entered service in early 1942 in North Africa and was recognizable by the lack of a carburetor scoop on the top of its nose. The P-40L, a stripped down version of the P-40F, entered service in early 1943. It was an attempt to improve the P-40F's performance by reducing its weight, including the removal of armor and two of the six machine guns. Pilots called it the "Gipsy Rose Lee" in reference to a famous stripper. The plane's performance, however, was only slightly improved. The use of Merlin engines in P-40s was terminated in 1943, as priority was given to using them in the P-51. Production of P-40s with Merlin engines totaled more than 2,000 planes, and they were supplied to several Allied nations under the Lend-Lease program. The export versions of the P-40F and P-40L were called Kittyhawk Mk.IIs.

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American P-40N "Warhawk" - This is a model of an Army fighter that flew against the Japanese in New Guineau in late 1943. The P-40N entered service in 1943 and was the best of the Allison-engined P-40s, with improved speed and aerodynamics, including a longer fuselage. Later model P-40Ns had a redesigned rear canopy, which became the plane's signature feature. The P-40N was also the last and most numerous variant of the P-40, with more than 5,000 being built. The export version was called the Kittyhawk Mk.IV. P-40 production ended in November, 1944, because more modern fighters were available. But by then about 13,700 P-40s of all variants had been produced. The only American fighters built in greater numbers were the North American P-51 and the Republic P-47.

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