Warbird Information Exchange

Here are some pix of the CAF's P-40 that Vought worked on. I'm not sure of the full story, so I don't know if Vought did a complete restoration, or just a paint job or what. I'm sure there is someone here that can fill in the blanks

I was looking for pictures of a CAF P-40! thanks for posting! umm can't help with where it is now.. (there doesn't seem to be an entry in the registry

_________________
Vintage Warbird & German WWII galleries @ http://zeeat.spaces.live.com/

Still a regular flyer....my friend 'the Bear' is crew chief on it....the pics with the silver blades on her were taken back in the early 90's, a pilot back then unfortunately had an incident with them and they had to be changed out...now they are painted black...it had an accident a few years ago where it crashed on an air base and was damaged, but the pilot (Ollie Crawford) put it down safely and walked away...the plane was repaired and still flies, tho Bear would like to get it some new paint....

Mark

_________________
Mark Morris

You mean this incident?





This was at the Kingville NAS Airshow in 1996


Aero

Speaking of Ollie, here are some pics from what was billed as his last airshow in San Marcus, TX in 2005. Note the black blades, I think it looks more original with black blades


Aero





Aero






[

Not actually on the Air Base but just shortly after departing Luke AFB in Glendale, Arizona. My shop is in the flight path for Luke and I watched the P-40 chug over as it was headed home. It was only later that I learned all did not go to as planned! As I recall the airplane got as far as Casa Grande where it was bellied in.

I think that silver prop harkens back to the original Mike Dillon restoration on P-40N N1226N from the mid-1960s. A great four-part article about that effort graced Air Progress magazine, back in the days when such tales were rare at best. I remember he stated that he painted his airplane red because if he put combat paint on it folks would think it was not restored...this only 20 years after World War II ended. He wrote several articles for Air Progress...good stuff and a excellent writer.

Talking with my friend Bear about the crash a few years ago, he and the pilot and the CAF were VERY upset with a certain east coast engine restorer (no names mentioned, those in the know will know who I mean) as they had complained about a number of things on the engine after the restoration but the guy would do nothing, so the mechs with the CAF tried to fix the items themselves (really had no choice)...then, on that one fateful flight, the engine just gave up the ghost all together, and due to Ollie's superb handling skills (consider the plane was DEAD STICK at this time, no power to anything!) he was able to put it down and walk away from it...really quite a comment on Ollie and what an extraordinary aviator he was/is....

Mark

_________________
Mark Morris