T Bolt
Colonel
I've been kicking around the idea of building this one for years, and I recently acquired a lot of 3 box-less 1/48th scale AMTech P-40F's for $20 so I thought now was the time. It will be a long term project so please bear with me.
Picture 1) There's been some discussion about this photo on the internet and it's rather a mystery. There's no record of a twin P-40 ever having been made and the only evidence of one is this photo. The serial belongs to a P-40C, but the rear fuselage obviously belongs to a later model, either a 'D', 'E', or short tail 'F'. The engines are Merlins, probably from an 'F', and something else I noticed was that there is no wing to fuselage fairing.
Picture 2) This is a profile originally of a P-40F that I modified to depict the aircraft I intend to model. I'll be working under the pretense that the aircraft in the picture was a mock-up and what I'll be modeling is the production model.
One of the obvious weak points of the mock-up is side visibility. With those high mounted Merlins it would be like flying in a box, so in my production version the engines will be mounted lower, the centerline of the props even with the center of the wing. This isn't as much improvement as it would have been with the top of the engine even with the top of the wing, but that would have required the landing gear to be much too long for prop clearance.
I've also chosen to put a longer nose on it than what appears to be on the mock-up if the mock-up was fitted with a nose at all. If it was it was a very stubby one. I figure at least a couple more fifties than the standard P-40.
Also, to leave the landing gear in the original position as on the mockup I think is just silly with the nacelles right there, so I've moved them to that new position.
I chose to base it on the P-40F model for several reasons. First I think the longer tail that was introduced to handle the increased power of the Merlin and later Allison engines would be an absolute necessity with the twin engines, and second, I think if you were going to the trouble to increase the power of a P-40 like this you'd want the higher service ceiling of the Merlins.
So here goes. It may never have flown, bit it would have been on wicked looking machine.
Picture 1) There's been some discussion about this photo on the internet and it's rather a mystery. There's no record of a twin P-40 ever having been made and the only evidence of one is this photo. The serial belongs to a P-40C, but the rear fuselage obviously belongs to a later model, either a 'D', 'E', or short tail 'F'. The engines are Merlins, probably from an 'F', and something else I noticed was that there is no wing to fuselage fairing.
Picture 2) This is a profile originally of a P-40F that I modified to depict the aircraft I intend to model. I'll be working under the pretense that the aircraft in the picture was a mock-up and what I'll be modeling is the production model.
One of the obvious weak points of the mock-up is side visibility. With those high mounted Merlins it would be like flying in a box, so in my production version the engines will be mounted lower, the centerline of the props even with the center of the wing. This isn't as much improvement as it would have been with the top of the engine even with the top of the wing, but that would have required the landing gear to be much too long for prop clearance.
I've also chosen to put a longer nose on it than what appears to be on the mock-up if the mock-up was fitted with a nose at all. If it was it was a very stubby one. I figure at least a couple more fifties than the standard P-40.
Also, to leave the landing gear in the original position as on the mockup I think is just silly with the nacelles right there, so I've moved them to that new position.
I chose to base it on the P-40F model for several reasons. First I think the longer tail that was introduced to handle the increased power of the Merlin and later Allison engines would be an absolute necessity with the twin engines, and second, I think if you were going to the trouble to increase the power of a P-40 like this you'd want the higher service ceiling of the Merlins.
So here goes. It may never have flown, bit it would have been on wicked looking machine.
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cool model 
