Hawk 75 Royal Thai Air Force cannon pods

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I see. Here another shot of mount of the 23mm gun at the XP-36F

Madsen 23mm gun XP-36F mount.jpg

the source: the net.
 
If it's correct that the Thai air force removed the cannon from their Hawks after allying with Japan, it ended up as a devil's bargain when the United States began heavy bomber raids. Do you want enough performance to have a hope of catching the Liberators, or enough firepower to do something to them?
 
I see. Here another shot of mount of the 23mm gun at the XP-36F
Interesting. That has the gun mounted on its side, which explains the different location of the ejection port compared to the D.XXI. (The Madsens generally fed from the bottom on the left side, so the belt made a 180 degree hairpin turn.)

Thanks for posting this.

Notice that the perforations in the shroud are offset on the "bottom" and the side toward us, so the number of openings visible in a side photo will be different depending on whether the gun and shroud are upright or mounted on their sides. It may be possible to mount the shroud in any of 4 orientations 90 degrees apart. (So that you don't need to figure out "up" the way you do with a USB-A plug.)
 
A couple of enlarged pics showing the wing tops ... not too best but may came in handy ...

rthai070wingtop.jpg

rthai070wingtop_.jpg

rthai070wingtop_a.jpg

rthai070wingtop_b.jpg

rthai070wingtop_c.jpg

rthai070wingtop_d.jpg

the source: the net.
 
Yep, it's a fascinating story. And people make fun of the Italians for switching sides after 3 years! The Thais gave up fighting after a few hours and allied with the Japanese after 6 days!

(Yes, the agreement on the 14th was both secret and limited. Blah, blah, blah.)
 

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  • RTAFM Hawk 75M 0952776 hatch right wing.jpg
    RTAFM Hawk 75M 0952776 hatch right wing.jpg
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Humm you are right ... barely seen in other shots ...

H75N.jpg


It looks like masked by the dust ...

H75N_a.jpg
 
I'm pretty sure this is the hatch on the right wing:

View attachment 640665

The one on the left wing appears to be damaged (a bent corner, at least), which makes it much more visible.

There's a very, very vague indication of a panel line on the leading edge of the right wing, but that may well be an artifact, a bit of paint damage that happens to be in about the right place, or something else irrelevant. There are good odds that one with has a locally-fabricated replacement, possibly as part of the restoration to get the aircraft ready for the museum, or was repaired with panels from another aircraft, or got non-identical spare parts from Curtiss. Not much of a way to know.

Peter De Jong (the photographer) identifies this aircraft as Kh11*/* Manufacturer's Serial # 12763, which is in the range identified by Bowers in Curtiss Aircraft 1907-1947.

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I just realized that the aircraft only has one gunport in the cowling ...
 
A book on the Hawk 75 family had just been published by European Airways (a Norwegian publisher of eclectic aviation books, europeanairlines.no). It was written by historian Dan Hagedorn and Amaru Tincopa 'Curtiss Design 75 Hawk'.

There is a whole chapter on the Thai examples. I did the artwork for the book and concluded the gun packs on the museum example are rough mock-ups that don't really resemble the originals. Unfortunately all I could do was sketch by eye a close match based on photos. I thought the gun pod wasn't as deep as the museum example and the contour was flatter on the bottom of the pod (in side view).

Another point of warning…the story goes that the colours on the museum aircraft were USAF SEA camo paints and don't have any resemblance to the original scheme… however, as to the actual colours the aircraft were painted is whole other quagmire.

Juanita
 
A book on the Hawk 75 family had just been published by European Airways (a Norwegian publisher of eclectic aviation books, europeanairlines.no). It was written by historian Dan Hagedorn and Amaru Tincopa 'Curtiss Design 75 Hawk'.

There is a whole chapter on the Thai examples.
Is the book in Norwegian? (The web site is down, so I can't check.)

How many pages is the chapter on the Thai Hawks?

Does it have a conclusion on the caliber of the cannon (20mm or 23mm)?
 
Thailand purchased 12 Hawk 75Ns from Curtiss.
From the factory, they were equipped with two 7.62mm MGs and two 23mm Madsen cannon.
Could you specify your source for this? Does it specify which 7.62mm MGs they were (manufacturer and model)?
 

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