Procrastintor
Senior Airman
Boom, Greg knows whats up.
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[/B]Forigen operators still had orders for the aircraft. Did you ever think that many of those late model P-40s went to training units to free up much needed P-51s?
Perhaps - but no one in the procurement end of the DoD really knew when the war was going to end, by contract Curtiss still had to keep pumping out P-40s.They were going to training units in 1943. The last few hundred built went (for the most part) straight to the breakers yards. For late summer and fall of 1944 that should be pretty telling.Of course the hash that Curtiss made of P-47 production might have made the PTB rather hesitant to try to convert Curtiss production a second time.
This is absolutely not true!!! I've been around both aircraft and I can tell you that except for some time limited items and possibly manufacturer's driven inspections BOTH aircraft require about the same amount of skill and manpower to maintain in the field..That was one of the P-40's VERY few technical advantages over the Mustang. I mean seriously that's why it was so good in the Pacific and Africa, you could just stick it on the sand and call it a runway and it'd fly fine. But a P-51 needed a paved runway, a whole team of mechanics, and at least some sort of hangar.
Check your sources and their backgrounds. There are dozens of aviation authors that have never touched a real aircraft but yet they will make statements about maintaining and flying them, often misquoting an interviewee or other source.Oh, I was just basically forwarding what I had read about them.
But what about replacement parts? Wouldn't P-40s come by them easier, as they were around for longer?
I haven't. I've only flown in jet warbirds and trainers. The only WW2 warbird I've flown in was a PBY.I'll do that Flyboy, also, have you flown them? Just curious (I haven't)
"the biggest joke among pilots of those days was they told the mechanics after running a 51 hard and heavy that they needed to screw in a new set of plugs.....when they ran the 40 like that they told the mechanic they needed to screw in a new engine" -Bobbysocks
Back up, are you trying to say the P-51 is easier to maintain than a P-40? That was one of the P-40's VERY few technical advantages over the Mustang. I mean seriously that's why it was so good in the Pacific and Africa, you could just stick it on the sand and call it a runway and it'd fly fine. But a P-51 needed a paved runway, a whole team of mechanics, and at least some sort of hangar. It's like an F-22 vs an F-16, an F-22 will win in a dogfight all day long, but the F-16 can be used in Iraq in a forward air base, while you have to keep the F-22s in the US in their air conditioned hangar.