Photo: Graham Orphan/www.planesalesusa.com/
Call it the Warhawk, the Kittyhawk, or the Tomahawk. The Curtiss P-40 was a pivotal American piston engine fighter that held down the fort until P-47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang arrived and slowly but surely assured air superiority over Europe. But they also served in the Pacific Theater, albeit not as famously.
Most Second World War military planes still kicking around have an amazing story to tell. But this P-40 N Kittyhawk for sale by a private seller on planesalesusa.com out of New Zealand has one that rivals the best. Leaving the Curtiss factory in 1942, this Kittyhawk served in the Royal Australian Air Force's 75 Squadron over the skies of Papua New Guinea.
Sporting the iconic Allison V-1710 V12 piston engine and six M2 Browning 50. caliber machine guns, this airplane tussled with the might of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces and their Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters. At some point during the conflict, one can only assume RAAF pilots received better airplanes like Mustangs and Spitfires, as this P-40 was grounded and subsequently abandoned in the jungle following the war's end.
There it sat, largely uninterrupted for decades before being pulled from the jungle brush and painstakingly restored to as close to factory fresh as any old warplane could ever look. It even has the ultra-rare undercarriage-mounted auxiliary fuel tank complete with all the needed extra plumbing. It's also the final remaining P-40 on the planet still sporting fully operational machine gun bays. However, they haven't fired anything other than blank rounds since the 1940s.
With the benefit of a second seat behind the pilot in the cockpit, you could take paying customers for rides in this thing if you can settle the insurance. It could help offset the considerable $2.45 million cost of ownership. This price doesn't include the guns and the ammunition. Between this and a mansion for the same money, we'd have to take the airplane. Call us crazy all you want.
Sporting the iconic Allison V-1710 V12 piston engine and six M2 Browning 50. caliber machine guns, this airplane tussled with the might of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces and their Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters. At some point during the conflict, one can only assume RAAF pilots received better airplanes like Mustangs and Spitfires, as this P-40 was grounded and subsequently abandoned in the jungle following the war's end.
There it sat, largely uninterrupted for decades before being pulled from the jungle brush and painstakingly restored to as close to factory fresh as any old warplane could ever look. It even has the ultra-rare undercarriage-mounted auxiliary fuel tank complete with all the needed extra plumbing. It's also the final remaining P-40 on the planet still sporting fully operational machine gun bays. However, they haven't fired anything other than blank rounds since the 1940s.
With the benefit of a second seat behind the pilot in the cockpit, you could take paying customers for rides in this thing if you can settle the insurance. It could help offset the considerable $2.45 million cost of ownership. This price doesn't include the guns and the ammunition. Between this and a mansion for the same money, we'd have to take the airplane. Call us crazy all you want.
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