A fake Curtiss WWII fighter

[Zizi6785]

I found this plane in Aero Journal. Has anybody any other information about this plane?

 

[Stargazer]

Curtiss "H-" designations indicate the Hawk series starting with the XP-36, going through the P-40 KITTYHAWK, TOMAHAWK and WARHAWK series, all the way down to the XP-46. They are divided into H-75, H-81 and H-87 usually, and I don't recall there being an H-83 in the lot, though the airplane in the picture is obviously a P-40 derivative. I'll check this out later tonight and let you know about it.

 

[frank]

Could it be a fake? Other than a passing resemblance to a P-40 or P-36 for that matter, it doesn't look anything like them. Short & fat fuselage, inward retracting gear, etc.

Curtiss "H-" designations indicate the Hawk series starting with the XP-36, going through the P-40 KITTYHAWK, TOMAHAWK and WARHAWK series, all the way down to the XP-46. They are divided into H-75, H-81 and H-87 usually, and I don't recall there being an H-83 in the lot, though the airplane in the picture is obviously a P-40 derivative. I'll check this out later tonight and let you know about it.

 

[Hardrada55]

It's a Curtis P-46 prototype dressed up as if the French had ordered some.

 

[Tophe]

I remembered in "Le Fana de l'Aviation" magazine was a very special P-36/40 intermediate, but I have checked and this is not this one. This was the radial-engined H-81A (P-40 with R-1830), in Fana #186 of May 1985... Sorry.

 

[joncarrfarrelly]

It is the Curtiss XP-46 which was numbered as CP-39-13A and Hawk 86.
The Anglo-French Purchasing Committee placed a Letter of Intent with Curtiss in early 1940
for the aircraft as the Hawk H86.

Hi Tophe, the R-1830 powered Hawk 81A was not an intermediate step between the P-36 and P-40, rather
it was a P-40 purchased by Pratt & Whitney to test their R-1830-SSC7-G engine.

83 and 83A show up on the Curtiss list as attack bomber proposals from the late '30s.

info from Curtiss Fighter Aircraft, Dean & Hagedorn, Schiffer 2007

 

[Stargazer]

The Model 75 refers to the P-36 (MOHAWK), XP-37, XP-40 and XP-42.
The Model 81 refers to the P-40 TOMAHAWK versions.
The Model 86 refers to the XP-46.
The Model 87 refers to the P-40 KITTYHAWK and WARHAWK versions.
The Model 88 refers to the unbuilt XP-53 (which led to the Model 90 and 95 / XP-60 series).

As I suspected, this Model 83 is a complete fake!

Dear joncarrfarrelly, the allocation of the number "83" was unknown to me until today... Thanks for the info! Can you fill in my other missing Curtiss designations too? Models 27, 65, 74, 78, 80, 89, 92 and 93 are still unaccounted for in my lists, and the otherwise great Putnam book had nothing to say about them!

 

[Zizi6785]

Thanks Everybody!

It's seems XP-46 with fake French colours:

 

[Stargazer]

You're right! I think that's what it is!

Is the color profile taken from the latest (#10) issue of Aero Journal? I don't know why they would do a fake in this otherwise serious publication. With a scan of the whole page (in PM or e-mail) I would be able to translate the accompanying text and give some explanations about this. Zizi6785, do you think you can scan the whole page for us?

 

[Zizi6785]

I sent a mail for you with full pages!

 

[airman]

like this there was a cover of italian aviation magazine with Northrop F-20 : a special about First Gulf War !
Naturally we know that F-20 was "defeated" by F-16 !

above real history of Curtiss P-46 !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_XP-46

Curtiss H-83 could be a journalistic invention like naked girls on magazine ?

 

[Stargazer]

After reading through the excerpt that Zizi6785 sent me, I can confirm that this is indeed a fake! The author tried to imagine an alternate version of 1940 when France continued fighting the Germans and received more aircraft from the US, including Consolidated LB-30, Curtiss H-81, Grumman G-36C and Lockheed L-22 (sic). The article states clearly that the H-83 is meant to be an XP-46 production version (which confirms that "Model 83A" is clearly a mistake, as the XP-46 was Model 86 and this should have read Model 86A).

What I wasn't able to determine from the article is whether this is based on actual procurement data. I know the LB-30, G-36 and H-81 were exported to Britain, and to my knowledge only the Lockheed Lighting and Curtiss P-36 were actually used by France before capitulation. It is not impossible that Curtiss may have planned an export version of the XP-46 as well, but I have no data on this.

 

[Stargazer]

The old thread "Curtiss H-83 ? ? ? ?" was merged with this thread.

Er... not a good idea, Jens, I split it out back to a separate topic for the "fakes" section. There is more than enough authentic and valuable information in the Curtiss designations thread not to have this stuff get in the way... :-\

 

[Dinng]

What if it's not a fake?

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

That's the XP-46. Noone is claiming the XP-46 is fake, the question is about the H-83 designation for a potential French buy of production XP-46s that never occured, specifically.

 

[Archibald]

Gosh, didn't saw this one back then. The France Fights On team will love it ! An alternate history inside our alternate history...