Quote:
Originally Posted by yanknbank
OT a little but it fits with the thread. After the war Pop was looking at buying a couple of P-40’s out of Mildura that were being used at the No.2 OTU where the RAAF was training its fighter pilots at the time.
The Kittyhawks and Spitfires were up for disposal and you could buy the P-40 (no prop) for £14 with the wheels and £7 without them (I can’t remember what the deal was with the Spitfires, it’s been 40 years since of seen the old documentation from the time).
He was mainly after the Allison’s (and other bits and pieces), looking to convert them to ground power units/generators. It didn’t happen due to the difficulty at the time of transporting the airframes to where they needed to go.
Considering that today it’s going to cost you northwards of $2.5 mil USD for a fully restored P-40, it would’ve been nice to have a couple of donor airframes sitting out the back in the shed!
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Kittyhawks and Spitfires, that's amazing!
The Kittyhawks were there at Milne Bay, the RAAF's finest hour, that was the literal turning of the tide for Australia in WW2!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pToxEa30KdU