Curtiss P-40 Hawk-81_47
Flying Tiger
CFS3 - V4.00.169

This aircraft was built by Gregory "Sarge" Pierson using version 4.00.169 of the AvHistory 1% Assembly Line process.  It is based on the outstanding visual created by Ed Wilson.  John BRAVO/4 Whelan based this skin on an aircraft  #47 flown by R.T. Smith of the 3rd Squadron Hell's Angels. 



Col. Smith was credited with 8.9 Air-to-Air Victories as Flight Leader of the 3rd Pursuit Squadron “Hell’s Angels” of the 1st American Volunteer Group that distinguished itself in China during late 1941 through early 1942.



The Flying Tigers. Called "Fei Hu" by the Chinese, these brave members of the American Volunteer Group formed a secret operation of American airmen recruited to stop the advance of the Japanese in Southeast Asia.



The were formed into 3 squadrons, Adam & Eve, Panda Bear & Hells Angles.

The AVG were planes were diverted from Tomahawk IIB contracts, which was equivalent to the P-40C, but when the the planes were actually built they were equipped with the externally-sealed fuel tanks that had been used on the Tomahawk IIA.  Curtiss company records list them as Model H81-A3.



Curtiss had some surplus externally-sealed fuel tanks lying around that the British did not want, and decided to use them on the Chinese contract.



The Chinese contract did not specifically ask for plumbing or shackles for an external fuel tank, so this was deleted. The AVG Tomahawks were functionally equivalent to Tomahawk IIA, even though they were taken from a Tomahawk IIB production batch.  Additionally. they did not have the "C" models front armor plate that was mounted between the .50 cals, so they are basically a customized P-40B and not pure P-40Cs.



The Flying Tigers first combat was on December 20, 1941, 13 days after the attack on Pearl harbor at Kunming. 



On December 20, after two years of unprecedented conquest in Asia and the Pacific, the invincibility of the veteran Japanese air force evaporated in the face of a few American pilots flying their first combat mission.



The Japanese attacked the city with ten unescorted bombers. For the vaunted Nippon air warrior such missions were routine; for four years there had been no air force in China to challenge them, no opposing airmen to dissuade them from their deadly forays, and no warriors of the air to protect the hapless civilians in the cities below.

In a matter of minutes nine of the ten enemy bombers fell to fire from out-dated P-40s flown by American civilians. Only one P-40 was lost in the A.V.G.'s baptism of fire. After shooting down one bomber Ed Rector had been so determined to make sure none escaped that he had chased the sole survivor until his own airplane ran out of gas and he had to make an emergency wheel's up landing. The following morning he phoned in from a nearby city that he had survived and was returning to base.

BEAR
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