Lope's Hope - Old and New (1 Viewer)

[MIflyer]

Donald Lopez flew a P-40N named Lope's Hope in China in Ww2. It was noteworthy in that he took down an Oscar on a head-on pass when the Warhawk''s sturdy airframe took the wing off the Oscar while losing only a few outer feet of its own wing.
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Air Corps Aviation accomplished a superb recreation of a later Lope's Hope, a P-51B. The aircraft is even equipped with the unique radio installations used on fighters only in that theater, a Bendix MN-26 direction finding receiver and a SCR-274N BC-455 receiver, 6-9.1 MHZ, presumably paired with a companion SCR-274-N transmitter, such as the one that covers 5.3-7 MHZ. P-51 Photos from Flight Journal.

 

[Jadera]

Donald Lopez flew a P-40N named Lope's Hope in China in Ww2. It was noteworthy in that he took down an Oscar on a head-on pass when the Warhawk''s sturdy airframe took the wing off the Oscar while losing only a few outer feet of its own wing.
.
Air Corps Aviation accomplished a superb recreation of a later Lope's Hope, a P-51B. The aircraft is even equipped with the unique radio installations used on fighters only in that theater, a Bendix MN-26 direction finding receiver and a SCR-274N BC-455 receiver, 6-9.1 MHZ, presumably paired with a companion SCR-274-N transmitter, such as the one that covers 5.3-7 MHZ. P-51 Photos from Flight Journal.

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Nice!

 

[Gnomey]

Good stuff!

 

[Boom]

Great artwork of Lopez' P-40.

I have his two books that cover his time in the USAAF/USAF, both wonderful reads.

 

[SaparotRob]

Great post.

 

[Viking1066]

 

[Dana Bell]

Don didn't actually get credit for the Oscar until well after the war, and even then not "officially." (It's possible the Oscar was added to the USAF's victory list after Don and I discussed this back in the 1980s - it hasn't come up since then, and Don's no longer with us.) Anyway, he'd reported the collision at the time, but there were no supporting witnesses to the victory. He said the Japanese wreckage was discovered after the war - the severed wing had traces of OD scraped off Don's P-40!

Cheers,



Dana

 

[MIflyer]

I have his two books that cover his time in the USAAF/USAF, both wonderful reads.

Yes, I have those two books. That painting is displayed in the ASM in DC. One of the very best paintings of a P-40 I have ever seen, and iconic in that it displays the airplane's legendary toughness. For all the P-47's strength and ability to take battle damage, I do not recall one ever reading of one taking the wing off an enemy airplane and surviving. Of course, given the eight .50 cal no enemy airplane may have survived long enough to get hit by the Thunderbolt. There was that mid-air between Joe Foss and Tony Levier in a P-38 versus an F4U but that was just the wingtips.

 

[Airframes]

Great pics and info. Can you confirm that those square, silver fittings are heaters ? I'm probably wrong, but I thought they were the firing servos.

 

[chuckc]

The original Lope's Hope 3rd, 42-103585, is not a P-51B; it is a P-51C-7NT built in Dallas. Of course, Bs and Cs look the same and really are, except for the factory of origin.
I did the research and documentation for Lope's Hope as the AirCorps Aviation historian.

A P-51C-7NT is a little-known designation for a P-51C-5NT with a fuselage fuel tank added at a modification center after rolling off the assembly line. At first, because a fuselage fuel fill and cap existed, we believed Lope's Hope 3rd was a P-51C-10NT, but further research showed that wasn't the case.

The airframe recreated in tribute to Lope's Hope 3rd is 43-24907 and is a P-51C-10NT.

Your caption about the gun installation has some factual errors as well. The square silver items are Type G-9 gun-firing solenoids. The gun heaters are black and mounted atop the receivers. The guns were canted to avoid bulges in the wing surface, not to align with the horizon. NA later figured out how to mount them vertically without any bulges .

Most of these photos originated with Scott Slocum or AirCorps Aviation, not Flight Journal. I took some of them.

Much more information, and hundreds of photos are available here: https://www.aircorpsaviation.com/project/p-51c-lopes-hope-3rd/