One of my many ongoing projects is a Hasegawa P-40E… What the hell is this??? SWAG is a gun camera / post strike camera, training camera. Only see it on the kit instructions and on two built kits. No period photos or any written record. Was it for training only? Used a certain time frame? Doing a 41/42 PI aircraft. Oh! And what would the prop blades be? I know B/Cs props were NMF front, maroon rear. Cant find my book with the time frame the black props came in.
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A quick search indicates those cameras were mounted on the K. I do not think P-40D/E carried those cameras. According to the manual, their gun camera was mounted next to the gun sight. See subpar. (d):
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Oops! Hasegawa is trying to keep up with Tamiya. Their Ki-27 comes with a camera that mounts on the upper left wing. They dont tell you it was for training only. And the Brazilians did a custom mount on the left bomb rack of their P-47s in Italy , for a strike camera. I figured it was something of that nature.
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Tim, I’m just glad that you brought up the question. I’ve never seen that website before and it’s been around since the early 2000s.
I started out googling images of the 343rd in the Aleutians. I did not find any good photos of the underside of the right wing, but I found several color photos that had not seen before. I found a PDF of a RAF evaluation of a P-40E underwing camera, in which they evaluated it as a good camera although behind the guns, when fired, it became so blurry that often times the even a bomber size target would jump out of the frame. That opens up questions because a different site listing the two types of gun cameras used on P-40s claims that that underwing camera did not appear until the P-40K. Maybe I misread the report and they were referring to a K, because the British referred to P-40s as Kittyhawks, and I assume they were referring to an E.
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Tim, apparently it was sometime after Pearl Harbor that we went to all black propellers. I have not found any tech order yet that gives a specific date, so I doubt I’m giving you any information that you don’t already have. Again, thanks to your question in this thread, I learned something. I never knew about the silver propellers with maroon on the back. Sounds very Japanese!
Interesting. I’ve got the Airfix P-40B from Pearl Harbour in the pipeline so that’s useful information.
If I waited a couple more minutes to share my exciting new information, I could have combined posts. Hate to go to another site but I found where Dana Bell answered this question, and the thread contains pictures of burnt out P-40Bs at Pearl Harbor with yellow-tipped black propellers:
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Great info. Clincher was the destroyed P-40s at Pearl. Bs or Cs, but had black props. Es. Id think would have been black too. (especially seeing the Es had just arrived in the PI. Some were still crated when the defecation hit the ventilation. )
WIP Airfix 1/48 P-40C. 33d Pursuit Sqn. Kaldadarnes Airfield, Iceland. Aug. 1941. I need to ditch the yellow prop tips. I dont remember what color I used for the maroon. (Base colors are Mig 237 OD and 239 Grey) You’ll need to do some snooping. The PH sqns had a bit different markings. Oh, and cockpit was a proprietary Curtiss green, not standard interior green. I just TLARed a bit of black to the interior green .
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Found my P-40 (early) book. It was right next to the snake (that woulda bitten me if there had been a snake!) Only 'bout 70 pages but quite informative. And has a dozen or so REAL color(NOT colorized!) period (not museum/ restored) photos.
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Hmmm … if the spec for black props came out in Jan. 41 how quick would it have taken for it to trickle in? From what I understand painting a blade is not as simple as it sounds. Has to be balanced. (Tape a coin to a blade on your fan, turn it on and see what happens) Dont think it would/could be done at Sqn level. Would think would be done at factory. New builds get black from the get go. Old ones would get black when they wore out and needed replacement. How long does it take a prop to hour out? ( I volunteered a a helicopter Museum eons ago and the blades were hour rated. After X number flight hours they had to be junked. Had a lead on some spares out of Canada but there was no records for them. COuld have been brand new, zero hour, or scrap.)
The P-40 in your original post isn’t a PI bird, is it? It looks like an Aleutian Tiger on the nose. What am I seeing?
We are in the middle of a major remodeling but I’ll try to find my Pacific Profiles P-40 book and look for info.
An example for the question asked. Wouldnt be asking about using the part(s) if it was already built. Seeing it wasnt used on Es, apparently, so actual photos dont exist… Had to use what I could find. I just saw the camera housing. And it was the only photo of a model with it I saw too.
[quote=“JPTRR, post:13, topic:42620”]
We are in the middle of a major remodeling
[/quote] Oooh! You lucky bastard… Remember my parents doing that with just the kitchen. I wanted to be put up for adoption.
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Ah…one more question… Actually a couple … few… Yellow circle = Landing light? Gun camera? What color should it be? Red circle= Landing light? Signal light? (I know P-51s had a set of 3 colored lights. Red, yellow, blue) Orange circle= IFF antenna? Would they be appropriate for early production P-40Es? (photos for illustration only.)
That’s great!
The early P-40 is a good looking aircraft.
I’ve got Welch’s aircraft to do.
I’m guessing it would have the aluminium and maroon props?
I need to do some research and see if I can turn up some photos.
Not that I want to hijack the thread.
Lot sleeker looking than the Es on up. That big radiator killed the lines (but is great for shark/ tiger mouths.) Actually first “shark” P-40s were RAF 112 Sqn in Egypt in July 41. ( AVG fighter aircraft were painted with a large shark face on the front of the aircraft. This was done after pilots saw a photograph of a P-40 of No. 112 Squadron RAF in North Africa, which in turn had adopted the shark face from German pilots of the Luftwaffe’s ZG 76 heavy fighter wing, flying Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighters in Crete. ) Like the P-38, great till the F ad got ugly from there with that big ol’ radiator. As for the prop, found a pic of a P-40 at PH, after the attack. It’s prop looks like NMF (lower 18 inches) and maroon, to me. Upper section has seen better days. (44th Pursuit Sqn., 18th Pursuit Wing. Bellows Field). Now worry about “highjacking” , its all for the exchange of info.
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Interesting tidbit for you … P-40 WARHAWK: PEARL HARBOR SURVIVOR (the-wanderling.com)
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