American Spitfire; the Curtiss XP-46 “Kittihawk” 

Yes, it was a detail I had wondered at too, only got the answer when researching this aircraft.

I have always loved these planes since I was a child I still have my die cast flying tiger lol she has some serious flight time on her from all the battles me and my friends flew when we were young

Just to keep things straightforward, clear & to avoid misunderstandings the USAAF called them 'Warhawks'. Meanwhile, British Forces of all types called every unfamiliar foreign bird (the feathered ones that is) 'Sh1tehawks'.

@@JohnWayneCheeseburger I absolutely loved the type too - From the point someone, probably my dad (who in this instance of unusual largesse had probably met someone in the pub who happened to have one which fell off the back of a lorry) gave me a Glow plug engined, sand brown plastic P40 tricked out in 'Flying Tigers' (of China fame) markings. It was meant to fly round in circles its hight controlled by two strings on a hand unit. It probably would have but we could never get the motor to run for more than 20 seconds. But me & my mates would spend hours simply trying to coax the motor into life, then gaze with rapt admiration when Buurup, halt, Buurup, halt occasionally burst into a high pitched scream and tried to tug the thing out of the hands of whoever was holding it. . Looking back I probably reckoned it was the most wonderful thing my dad ever bought me. Sadly, I have no idea what happened to it. Last I saw it was sitting quietly in its box almost forgotten about. (My mother's rare obsessive urge to 'clear out clutter' is the prime suspect).

That was a public service announcement on behalf of the Society for the Preservation of Gratutious Rudeness (,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,yer pheasant plucking cork soakers).

Best looking plane to wear the " Flying tiger" face.

​@@johnbockelie3899112 Sqn teeth.

Thanks Andrew, so pleased you enjoy the videos.

@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters one of my favourite authors Patrick O,Brian one said when being praised for his books "That is very kind of you...but what is your praise worth" I am a lifelong aviation buff, as well as being a glider pilot and GA pilot and aeroplane builder...and I love what your doing and think its important as well, if you find yourself in Dorset this summer, come flying with me :-)

The Curtiss thinking was outdated by '41/'42, bigger, more aerodynamically advanced airframes were required, mated to larger engines and fuel loads.

or simply that Curtiss did not heed lessons learned from European countries. The thick wing and lack of proper radiator ducting come to mind. These were known issues in 1936.

The businessmen say great a new project we can handle it the designers say it will do 400 mph on paper. Then the engineers and factory workers have to make it happen.

TBF, most everybody, in the mid / late 1930's, was caught with pants down when issue of 'production capacity' came up.

Finding workers with the skills as well as inventing new production techniques must have become a big problem by '42/43. Going from aircraft like the P40 and Hurricane to aircraft like the P51 and Tempest is a big leap.

@@maxpayne2574 designers are engineers

Oh yes, and I MIGHT get another one out later today. No promises though.

@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters Excellent news. Hopefully all goes well.

The Wildcats in question were a pair of Fleet Air Arm aircraft, scrambled & vectored in to intercept a lone Ju-88 raider near Portsmouth, during October 1940. The full account is in the "Battle of Britain" book, by Patrick Bishop.

@@CZ350tuner Thanks. Good to know.

I believe the Royal Naval Air Arm called them "Martlets"...

I believe that the British asked North American to produce the P-40 for them and they responded that they could do better.

Exactly. Don Berlin was fed up with lack of progress on the fighters so he left Curtiss. Their design team was unimpressive, but the P-40 was their (and GM's) cash cow, milking the system until 1944.

@@michaeltelson9798 there was immense pressure from GM and Wright Field (Material Command) to not compete with the Allison P-46 venture. Allison was uncooperative with NAA from the very beginning. As for timing NAA had been talking with Brit companies and BPC since 1938-39 and their V-12 fighter concept development was in the works by 1939 (P-509). Schmued said he'd been working on the concept since Meredith published his cooling drag paper in 1935.

You know, I thought the same! It doesnt look bad as such, just...not quite right.

But then there's the P47. Compared to it's contemporaries it's a bit, unbalanced. Inelegant. Maybe even...chonky In combat though, an absolute monster. Maybe the exception that proves the rule.

True! Although I always think the p47 as a sledgehammer - never elegant or necessarily stylish, but absolute the right tool for a certain job. Also horsepower...an absolute s**t tonne of horsepower :D

@@jptata3161 supposedly Seversky commented that the P-47 would be a dinosaur, but a dinosaur with elegant proportions. 😏 Truly the Cadillac of fighters.

@@toqtoq3361 begrudgingly I must agree.

Don't forget the New Guinea theater either

@@razorback20 Port Moresby is in New Guinea.

@@borninjordan7448 Oops, my bad. Next time I'll refrain myself to comment while I'm multitasking (^^)

@@razorback20 No problem.

Top P40 fighter ace world wide, Clive Caldwell RAAF👌

Sure I'll get around to them one day :)

A lot of the shenanigans dealing with later Curtiss fighters revolved around Glen Curtiss being opposed to his factories building a competitor's aircraft, specifically the P-51. So he made a lot of promises to provide a better aircraft than the P-51, similar to how the B-24 was designed to keep Consolidated from building B-17's. The difference was, Consolidated delivered, where Glen Curtiss didn't.

Aesthetically, I don't like the big maw on the later P-40s, but love the P-36, P-60 and early P-40s. The P-36 would have looked better with a spinner, which might have worked well in the North like Alaska, or farther south if cooling air exits were expanded on the sides like LA-7 and KI-100. the Buffalo would have benefited from this as well.

The bubble-canopy XP-40Q was the best looking P-40 variant, bar none...aesthetically almost perfect..the big scoop on the P-40E-N series looks good with a shark's mouth, but it is huge!...I always wondered how it could possibly be any less drag than a radial engine with that big scoop hanging down..and the Buffalo DID have a spinner on the F2A-1 versions, a small one, and a much bigger one on the F2A-2 version....@@alan6832

The P-60 was P-40 technology mated to the R-2800. The XP-46 was too small to match the engine. A better match might have been the R-1830 with 2 speed supercharger.

Actually, NAA was fed up with Allison from the very beginning. In March 1941, Kindelberger asked the BPC for the RR Merlin XX installation documents, which they received. GM therefore interferred with NAA ability to compete for a USAAF fighter contract, so they did a backdoor deal to provide the A-36 from different funding while they concurrently improved the radiator ducting with Brit help. By 1942 they were well prepared to fit the 2 stage Merlins and produced two for testing purposes about the same time as the Brits flew the Mustang X. ... And we all know what happened next.

unfortunately it was 2 years too late to be useful and so whilst the best P-40 ever made, it was still average compared to what was fighting in europe at the time.

Right...had Curtiss gotten the "Q" model in production 2 years earlier, it would have been more than worthwhile..and they might have done so had they not been wasting their time and resources on ungainly dead-ends like the XP-42, XP-46, XP-60, XP-55, and XF14C....@@philkennedy8683

The Q handled very nicely, but the Allison was still a problem with no intercooler, aftercooler or backfire screens. Read the flight reports. The Q constantly had forced landings.

Then there were the 18 other aircraft development programs that Curtiss was working on resulting in a massive dilution of effort.

Sounds right. A lot of manufacturers got stuck making hundreds of a proven, successful, but outdated designs, at the expense of innovation...

Curtiss had a poor design team, whereas NAA had engineers fresh from CALTECH / GALCIT and used that facility to advantage. NAA design team was far better and the management was astute in gleaning many lessons learned from European/Brit/German sources in 1938-1939. They also learned from the P-46 mistakes.

I remember that, too. P-40 names still confuse me. My favorite name for it is Warhawk. Everything else I think was for export.

Amazing, how both aircraft (the 46 and the 51, that is) share so many similarities, albeit only superficial, to be so different in detail and ultimately in the results achieved with each design. The power of engineering

Now you've brought up a mystery. BC in December - I'm thinking ice on the road, and a deep pond alongside the road.

@@kevinohalloran7164 Granger Taylor disappeared during a major storm of the century (my area in Port Alberni got effected too) no power for 2 weeks thousands of trees down. The Army was call in for a time. prior to Taylor's disappearance he became obsessed with Aliens, UFO's, left a farewell note saying he made alien contact and was boarding a Flying saucer on a 3 year space mission. There is a 1 hr CBC TV documentary on Granger Taylor (very sad)

@@rEdf196 Thanks for the expanded info. I'm from PEI, so I've seen some deep snow when I was young.

I seen him.....

Curtiss never developed the cooling system design so that it worked correctly. North American did their development work. Compare the XP-51 cooling system with the systems in the P-51A, P-51B, and P-51D. All of the cooling systems for the production aircraft were different and carefully designed to get the aerodynamics correct.

@@jimfisher5856 Probably one of the most fascinating aspects of World War 2 fighter development is how "upstart" companies that were not known as fighter design firms managed to usurp companies that were well known for fighters. Hawker was usurped by Supermarine in Britain, Curtis was usurped by North American and Republic. And of course Messerschmitt had the same sort of luck vs. Heinkel in Germany. Yet, when it came to bombers, the "old hands" like Handley Page, Avro, Boeng etc. dominated. It's just such a fascinating bit of history. :)

Actually, the P-40D was a little slower, but more manouverable with a better wing loading.

Yes, like the engine from a T-28B, or a Grumman Tracker...oh, and the R-1830 was the Pratt&Whitney Twin Wasp...I think you meant the Wright R-1820 Cyclone....

True enough. Also a thicker wing, higher wing loading and Too many air intakes creating too much drag.

Were the thicker aluminum sheets deliberately designed to make the aircraft more robust? Most US aircraft were known to take a lot of punishment and keep flying. Superior maneuverability at the expense of strength was shown to be a fool's choice in the Zero and even the Spitfire and BF-109 became heavier and less maneuverable in favor of heavier armament in later models.

@@fazole Boils down to imperial or metric. At that time About the thinnest that could be produced in inches scale was 1/16th inch thickness. Where as the standard in metric was 1mm.

@@fazole G A Pratt's answer is correct. The USA is imperial in measurement. All the sheet aluminum producing machines in the USA made it in 1/16th inch (technically .0625 inch). The US took imperial inch and made it digital way back in the c. 1900 era. I took manufacturing courses and learned both US digital & . Metric. Metal sheets can be made in 1mm, 2mm, or 3mm. In the USA it was 1/32, 1/16, 1/8th [ .03125, .0625, .0125] of an inch.

@@Easy-Eight Not sure that is correct. I think Alclad sheeting used in aircraft was made in various 'mil' based thicknesses, where 'mils' are thousandths of an inch. Alcoa produced Alclad in many thicknesses, e.g., .020, .022, .026, .028, .032, .034, .040, .045 mils and so on. Aluminum sheet 1 millimeter thick would be close to .042 mil. So, aluminum sheeting close to 1 mm was in fact available. I dunno about P-40s, but all of the thicknesses I quoted above appeared in different places on the wings of DC-3s. I suspect most WW2 era US aircraft incorporated a range of different sheeting thickness--different thicknesses in different parts of the plane. With a little searching you can find online repair manuals for various WW2 aircraft and see the actual thicknesses used on differnet parts of those planes.

The skins on the P-51 varied in thickness due to what was needed in a particular area. Most of those skins were .040". 0.6 mm is actually the thick of 23 sheets of heavy aluminum foil. I just measured the "heavy duty" foil in my kitchen. It was .001" thick.

Well in a dive straight down most can , although that's not ideal

A lot of manufacturers based their top speed figures on the prototypes weight and engine power before figuring in things like armour, armament, self-sealing fuel tanks and all the other paraphernalia that a combat aircraft needs, so they tended to sound much more impressive than they actually were.

Airplane salesmen. They are like automobile salesmen. And it's interesting that every airplane that never made it into production would have been a super world beater airplane without any of the problems and drawbacks that always seem to crop up with production airplanes when they go into actual service and are called upon to perform in the real world.

False marketing, especially by Curtiss, Bell and Lockheed. NAA delivered closer to their estimates.

Sorry, but that's all hyperbole. Those over-boosted P-40s were problematic with engine fires, broken cranks, thrown rods, etc. Even the late war Allison engines were problematic. Have a read of the Wright field testing of P-51B, P-47 and P-38J with the 150 Octane. The Allisons were limited to 70" MP and still had problems. No way the earlier Allisons could handle the boost advertised on those videos without detonation and extreme short life. The RAAF did it, but it was a question of saving the pilot vs the engine.

I really don't know why so many firms thought they needed their aircraft to carry a dozen machine guns when it really came down to a handful of heavy machine guns in the right place.

@@echodelta2172 Most MG's firing rifle calibre rounds, need a massive combined RoF to equal the weight of shot on target in a shot aimed burst to achieve a relative chance of damage close to that of a .50, 13mm and larger machine cannons can do on-target - hence the number of guns, the number of which, was/were usually a requirement/stipulation by the Air Ministries/War Departments based on their own Airforces knowledge of their own average aerial gunnery abilities - of/from/during those times. It doesn't help too much that the Browning 0.30's and 0.50's are quite heavy guns each, even without the feed tray/guides and the ammo chutes/boxes.

@@razor1uk610 What a great write-up of info! Concise too. Thanks!

True enough, but the thicker wing and multiple air intakes (and poor ventral ducting) still created too much drag.

Yep, and they probably could have had the P-40Q sooner, had they not been f@rting about with dead end designs like the XP-46, XP-60, XF14C, XP-55....

The Allison was not reliable. The Q handled better, but with the auxilliary s/c it lacked intercooler, aftercooler and backfire screens. Allison (GM) was the problem throughout the war and in Korea.

@@tomstulc9143 The engines that AVG received were those rejected by the USAAC for being beyond the stated requirements. This the AVG used happily.

@@michaeltelson9798 The Allison engines in the original AVG P-40s were cobbled together from rejected parts after being balanced by machinists. They were better than the production Allisons. The P-36 didn't use Allisons.

Germans seemed to think that way as well..FW-190A,F,G variants were some of the very few radial engine WW2 German fighters..most had inline engines, as did many of their bombers..the Japanese, on the other hand, were quite the opposite..overwhelmingly favoring radial engines in everything, much as the U.S. Navy did....

The P46 sure looks like a development step between the P40 and the P51. Does the book say that North American used elements of the P46 design for the P51? I couldn't find any reference to that title anywhere.

@@toomanyhobbies2011 It suggests it,but presents no evidence. I no longer have the book,so I cannot refer back to it.

NAA bought the XP-40 ( not 46 ) test data, as insisted on by the british commission. read "Mustang Designer" etc and you will see the NA-50B was signed for by the British before the asked NAA to buy the paperwork. the configuration was already settled. The XP-46 was one of many half thought out designs that doomed Curtiss to history.

and proper training against the enemy fighter.

The P-47 was heavier, but had smaller wings than the F6F and F4U. The p-47 was slightly longer.

Have a look around. All sorts of stuff on here ;)

point of order: the Mustang only exists because of the British. they loved the aircraft but hated the lack lustre engine. upgrading to the two stage Merlin now being license built by packard was an obvious step. Rolls did the first conversions to prove the point then NAA did a fairly major upgrade to give us the B/C version. It was the USAAF that initially didnt want it.

Such nonsense, the Brits loved the Mustang I/IIs and used them until they wore out, it was miles better than the P-40 at all levels and vastly outperformed the Spitfire MkV at *_low level._* The USAAF took all the P-51As that they could get and even took a ground attack version to get around funding restrictions. No more were made once the P-51B/C came out. The RAF’s low level photos for OVERLORD were taken from Mustang I/IIs.

What exactly is a "High-end British Merlin engine"?...It was a great engine, but there were many other options just as good, and several that made much more power...including Rolls-Royce's own Griffon...A turbo-compound Allison V-1710 might have been "high-end" had it gone into mass production...

Kind of in the English Language.

Exactly what i thought of! Especially the canopy...

The LaGG had a terrible reputation with the Soviets with them taken the plane’s 4 letters into what translated something as “ Certified Flammable Varnished Coffin”

Not yet, I'll put it on the (huge) list :)

the P-40Q was an attempt to update the P-40 line and it had a bubble canopy. unfortunately it was nowhere near up to the competition

Lipstick on a pig.

Look at the P40 with the Merlin.

Greg’s Airplanes just covered this topic

It didn’t improve the aircraft much. That’s the P-40F which was used in North Africa.

There was no 2 stage supercharger for the Allison simply because no one ever paid them to develop one (until very late in the war for use on the production version of the Twin Mustang). The Army Air Corps paid for the development of the Allison engine and they forbid Allison from using any of the funding to develop a 2 stage supercharger, in the mid 30's the military task NACA with determining what the best type of supercharger system was for high altitude performance, their conclusion was a single stage supercharger with a turbo to feed it at altitudes above 12,000 ft or so, that's the system that the Army Air Corps dictated all it's aircraft would have, the P38, P47, B17, B24 B29 and other's all had it, the P39 and the P40 (look up XP37) were both originally supposed to have the same system but on both the turbo was dropped at the last minute to speed up development because everyone was screaming for aircraft. NACA determined that a 2 stage 2 speed supercharger was the 2nd best way of achieving high altitude performance, for it's own reasons the US Navy chose that system for all aircraft developed for them, since the Navy didn't use anything that had the Allison engine in it they weren't going to pay for a 2 stage 2 speed supercharger to be developed for it. That's the reason that when the P51 was developed it's Allison only had a single stage supercharger, because the US Army didn't order the P51 originally and wasn't going to pay for a high altitude supercharger to be developed for it's Allison engine. It should also be known that Merlin engines also weren't available with 2 stage superchargers until mid 1942, even the early Packard built Merlin's only had a single stage supercharger, so putting a Merlin in the P51 when it was first developed wouldn't have resulted in any better performance. Single stage Allison engines were actually better than the single stage Merlin engines because they had intercoolers on them from day one allowing them to run higher boost levels where the single stage Merlin's didn't, they didn't get intercoolers until the 2 stage supercharger was developed for them. It's a myth that the Merlin engine is more powerful than the Allison, it's just that in mid 1942 the Merlin became available with a 2 stage supercharger, but with it's single stage supercharger with intercooler and the original turbo configuration for high altitude as used in the P38 is why it's performance exceeds Merlin's at any altitude (given of course that you're rating them on the same octane fuel).

@Duke Craig - Great info. Thank-you.

It was certainly an adequate one.

@@jacobmccandles1767 I think it was great in regards to numbers produced and theaters used. With over 2200 air to air kills ( different sources vary a bit) it shows that it was effective enough in that role. Also lots of material destroyed on the ground. Held the line for the early years in the Pacific , CBI and Mediterranean. A great plane in my opinion.

Available early in quantity. When desperately needed. Which the P-38 was not.

@@guaporeturns9472 so tell me El Guapo, would you say they had...a plethora of P-40s? Certainly it was great in that it beld the line, and I am a big fan. Sometimes a good solution right now is far better than a perfect solution later. For countries like China, South Africa, and New Zealand, the P-40 was there and it was their best. Even where it wasn't the best, like in the U.S., it could free up better planes for the Front.

@@Idahoguy10157 and really, even if the P-38 Had been available early, it's hard to say if it would have been employed correctly. It was no dogfighter, and later relied on boom and zoom tactics against the Japanese. The P-40 could out turn the Zero if it kept its speed high enough.

when one is making bold claims, one should read the actual feats performed. It appears that two of the kills were Stukas, not exactly hard kills. He went on to take out a macchi and that would hjave been harder work, assuming the Italian pilot was his equal. Wikipedia ( with Citations ) notes "His philosophy was that the P-40 was not a top-class fighter, but that its shortcomings "could be offset by unbridled aggression" Please Note I am a Kiwi and since the man was born here, I'll take part claim to the man but it doesnt change the status of the P-40 being very average and outdated piece of machinery by the time the war was peaking. The very existence of the P-51 is based around that issue.

They did force the retirement of the Bf109E in North Africa.

Trouble is if I miss one or other, lots of people complain \_o_/

He did - a picture flashed up