Curtiss P-40C’Warhawk’Fighter (US Army Air Force)

Plastic kit from BRONCO, for the assembly of a British airplane Curtiss P-40C ’Warhawk’ Fighter (US Army Air Force) of WW II, on 1/48 scale. Includes sprues with plastic parts, clear parts, assembly instructions, P.E. parts and decals.

In 1937, Curtis replaced one of its previously developed P36 fighters with Allison V-1710-19 liquid-cooled engines. The military project code for this aircraft was XP-40. The aircraft successfully flew for the first time in October of the following year and reached a high speed of 587 kilometers per hour. In April 1939, the P-40A ordered by the U.S. Army was put into production and the B and C models were successively improved in the following years. Among them, the P-40C type (also known as Hawk81 A-2) adds a self-sealing fuel tank to the B type, which effectively improves the overall protection of the fuel system. At the same time, a ground weapon rack is added, which can mount auxiliary fuel tanks or light bombs. The main weapons are two 12.7mm machine guns and four 7.62mm machine guns on the main wings. The US Army Air Force is equipped with 193 P-40Cs. Most of these aircraft are deployed to Hawaii and the Philippines in the Pacific. On the day of the outbreak of the Pacific War, US troops stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and Clark Base in the Philippines were attacked by Japanese naval aviation units. Although the losses were heavy, the P-40C driven by Captain Ken Taylor was forced into the air to face off and scored the record of shooting down two Japanese Type 99 carrier-based dive bombers. After the United States entered the war, some P-40Cs were also deployed to European theaters such as the United Kingdom and Iceland. With the continuous addition of new aircraft, the relatively outdated P-40C gradually withdrew from the frontline forces.