Thread: P-40F engine run - first flight not far away

The F is the Merlin engined version. Bloody rare and has a slightly different profile to the Allison-engined jobbies.

This photo was taken by Ben Loois and is off the warbirdz.net forum.

Here's the story of how she and her sisters came to be in Vanuatu (from the Pacific Wrecks site). The other F was extant in Australia for years but was exchanged with the RNZAF by Graham Hosking for a Corsair. The F has been re-engineered into an E (I think it's an E) which is more relavant to the RNZAF service of the Kittyhawk.

"SOUTH PACIFIC THEATER OF OPERATIONS (Army Forces in South Pacific Area) The 44th Fighter Squadron, 318th Fighter Group with P-40s based at Efate begins operating from Guadalcanal. The squadron will fly its first combat mission tomorrow, 21 Dec. Force landed on a training flight due to bad weather are P-40F "Bone Crusher" 41-14112 and P-40F 41-14205, all the pilots survived."

Ahh, the classic "what if" about the Merlins I love those. The P-38 and Whirlwinds would probably have been classics (though whether the Whirlwind would have been continued if the P-38 had been pressed into service is open to debate).

But alas, the Merlin being the precious commodity that it was, we'll never know. If I ever won the Euro Lottery (I think the domestic standard lottery win wouldn't be enough) I'd love to commission a Whirlwind, and actually use Merlins - and see what the critics have to say about the aircraft then.

Thanks for the update, Andy.