Curtiss P-40 Hawk 81A — Handmade Metal Model Airplane, 1:29

The shark-mouthed fighter of the Flying Tigers, at 1:29.

Handcrafted on an iron frame, hand-painted with decal insignia, metal propeller and rolling landing wheels, with the P-40's deep chin radiator and squared wingtips.

Details

• 1:29 scale, 100% iron frame
• Metal propeller
• Landing wheels that roll
• Hand-painted with decal insignia
• Chin radiator, canopy and wing detail
• Ready to display

The aircraft

The P-40 was never the best fighter in the sky. It was outclimbed and outturned by the Zero and could not fight above 15,000 feet. What it had was availability — it was in production when America needed aircraft immediately — plus a strong airframe and a formidable dive.

Claire Chennault's American Volunteer Group made it work in China by refusing to dogfight. They dived through Japanese formations, fired, and kept going, then climbed back and repeated it. The shark mouth was copied from a magazine photograph of a British squadron in North Africa, who had copied it from the Luftwaffe.