Estonian P-40B's

[Spinners 15,985]

Curtiss P-40B - 1st Aviation Regiment, Estonian Air Force, 1941

In July 1938 a group of Estonian Air Force officers arrived at the Supermarine works for a technical presentation on the Spitfire Type 300 and, on a later visit, to watch a series of demonstration flights of the Spitfire flown by Supermarine's chief test pilot Mutt Summers. The Estonians left suitably impressed and made an advance payment for 12 Spitfires to Order No. C.186/39. This order was approved by the Air Ministry and a contract between the two governments was finalised on March 2nd, 1939. However, by then the Estonian order had already been made as a third priority on the Foreign Office's list and with war clouds looming Estonia looked elsewhere for a modern fighter aircraft but whilst also keeping the Spitfire order intact.

Wasting no time, in April 1939 Estonian Air Force officers made the long journey to the Curtiss-Wright Corporation's main production facilities in Buffalo, New York to look at the Hawk 81A-2 (essentially the P-40B) that had been flying since October 1938 and had recently been purchased by the United States Army Air Corps whose order for 524 P-40's was the largest single order for a U.S. fighter aircraft at the time. With guarantees on prompt delivery (and ahead of the domestic customer) the Estonian government ordered 16 aircraft in May 1939. The first eight P-40B's arrived in Estonia during the early Spring of 1940 and equipped the 1st Aviation Regiment based at Otepää in southern Estonia but could do little to defend the country at the outset of the Soviet invasion on June 16th, 1940 and all Estonian forces were ordered to stand-down on the following day. The remaining eight P-40B's for Estonia were still in the U.S. and were eventually delivered to the Nationalist Chinese Air Force for use by the American Volunteer Group.

 

 

 

 

 

Skin Credit: Charles

[dsawan 624]

cool, which p-40 is this author?

[Spinners 15,985]

2 hours ago, dsawan said:

cool, which p-40 is this author?

DAT's all folks!

[dsawan 624]

Datson!

[Wrench 9,801]

Curious as to why you didn't use Raven's Tomahawk, instead of the Unavailables (tm)

[Spinners 15,985]

34 minutes ago, Wrench said:

Curious as to why you didn't use Raven's Tomahawk, instead of the Unavailables (tm)

Well, my IDF P-40 in the downloads section uses Raven's P-40 so it's clearly nothing personal. Things get released at both of the main sites and I'll give them all a whirl. Look at my posts here and you'll see that for yourself.

Something being 'unavailable' could only be an issue if I was planning to release it here... and I'm not!