Kittyhawk as Seahawk

[tigercat]

How would the Kittyhawk have fared as a FAA aircraft .


they were fairly tough and modular so  that would make maintenance easier.

Plus of course the flexibility of it being  a fighter bomber.

[The Wooksta!]

Not well, I'd suspect.  The under nose intake would dig in in the event of a ditching, flip the aircraft over and the pilot would likely drown.  Lack of folding wing would be an issue too.  On top of that, whilst it may be a tough aircraft would it be tough enough for carrier landings? The availability of proper carrier aircraft from the US also goes against it.

Non starter, except possibly as shore based. 

[NARSES2]

Given the USN's liking for radials, perhaps the P-36 is a more likely Curtis product. Need a lot of modifications but not insurmountable. Some are then passed to the FAA

[pyro-manic]

The under nose intake would dig in in the event of a ditching, flip the aircraft over and the pilot would likely drown.

While I can certainly see the reasoning here, was this a frequent occurrence? The Fulmar, Firefly and Barracuda all had chin radiators.

[Logan Hartke]

Well, the FAA has been known to employ a gaping maw every now and then.





The P-40 did fly off of the USS Chenango, the USS Ranger, the HMS Archer, and the USS Breton in WWII, if not others, as well.  They flew off of more carriers than a few types of carrier planes have!





































I think that a navalized carrier-based P-40 is VERY plausible.  I'd say that it would make just as good of a carrier fighter as the Hurricane and have better deck-handling characteristics than the Seafire (but then again, so does a unicycle).  Remember, Curtiss had more experience building carrier fighters than any other company on earth, it had just been out of the game for a little while.  The Hawks were tough little birds, I don't think they'd need much strengthening to be up to carrier landings.

On a more practical note, this wouldn't have happened without US Navy prompting, basically.  Curtiss would have had to at least attempted to develop a carrier version for a US Navy or Aeronavale before the British would consider ordering some, so you need a little more backstory to make it work.  The Royal Navy isn't going to go with something that's not been developed or tested.

Finally, someone else had a similar idea here, at least.

http://modelingmadness.com/review/allies/us/usaaf/yateshb40.htm



Cheers,

Logan

[ysi_maniac]

Lovely!

[Gondor]

I did something similar with a P-40Q for the 2010 Pegasus build for Telford that year.



Gondor

[royabulgaf]

What is that "thing" in photograph 3?  It looks like a dredge that has been converted into an aircraft carrier. 

[tigercat]

Some Brilliant photos and Kudos to the Fairey Curtis Kittiwake that is one detailed and lovingly prepared backstory.

So looks like the Sea Kittyhawk could have been a contender

[Mossie]

The under nose intake would dig in in the event of a ditching, flip the aircraft over and the pilot would likely drown.

While I can certainly see the reasoning here, was this a frequent occurrence? The Fulmar, Firefly and Barracuda all had chin radiators.

There were certain types used by the FAA where ditching was stongly advised against (even offically outlawed).  The Sea Hurricane and Seafire especially, their radiators would have the same effect in flipping them over.  The official advice for the Hurri at least was to turn inverted and bail out, less than ideal.  Neither were perfect for carrier ops (especially the Seafire), but were introduced for expediency.  If other better aircraft hadn't been available, a naval P-40 might well have been introduced as happened on land.

[NARSES2]

Fantastic photo's Logan thanks for sharing  Your'e absolutely right about Curtis having the experience to build naval aircraft as well.

[Logan Hartke]

What is that "thing" in photograph 3?  It looks like a dredge that has been converted into an aircraft carrier. 

Ah, the proud ship HMS Archer!  She had some notable accomplishments, but was really a pig, and withdrawn from service as an escort carrier for good reason in 1943.  She's a converted merchantman, but not nearly as bad from this angle!

Fantastic photo's Logan thanks for sharing  Your'e absolutely right about Curtis having the experience to build naval aircraft as well.

Happy to share them.  It was neat finding all those.  All those carriers I named were actually flown off of, not just aircraft transports.

As for Curtiss, that's something a lot of people forget since the I think the "between the wars" period gets a bit of a short shrift.  You have to remember, if the P-36 or P-40 were developed into a naval fighter, they'd have been the Curtiss F14C-1, this at a time when Grumman was still playing with the XF5F, Vought was still ironing out the XF4U, and Douglas had only built a single experimental naval fighter!  You know who had the 2nd most experience with naval fighters of any company?  Another aircraft company whose naval fighter experience really wouldn't pick up again until today: Boeing.

The things we forget, huh?  That's like most people not realizing that the Spitfire was merely the one notable exception to a nearly 40 year domination of RAF fighters by Hawker.

Cheers,

Logan

[Mossie]

You can probably stretch that back further if you include Sopwith, it more or less remained the same company after going bancrupt and being renamed Hawker.

I'll echo everyone else, lovely photos.

[Logan Hartke]

The US Navy did a perform a short series of trials on the H75B in 1936.  Not much is known about them, but the results seem to suggest that they didn't take them too seriously.



Cheers,

Logan

[NARSES2]

Interesting - cheers Logan