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Ummm - not "surplus" aircraft, and not just pilots:

P-40C* Tomahawks were sent straight from the factory to China (actually, Burma, which is where the squadron was formed and trained).

100 pilots and some 200 ground crew and administrative personnel were recruited (1 pilot had Visa problems and remained stateside, 10 US Army flight instructors went over in addition to the 99 pilots - some of those then joined as official AVG pilots.
30 more pilots followed later.

* AVG fighter aircraft came from a Curtiss assembly line which had just started producing Tomahawk IIB models for the Royal Air Force in North Africa. The Tomahawk IIB was similar to the U.S. Army's P-40C, but there is some evidence that Curtiss actually used leftover components when building the fighters intended for China, making them closer to the older P-40B/Tomahawk IIA specification - for instance the AVG aircraft had fuel tanks with external self-sealing coatings, rather than the more effective internal membranes as fitted to the P-40C/Tomahawk IIB.
In May 1942 50 new P-40Es were sent to the AVG - on 4 July 1942 the AVG was formally disbanded and absorbed into the USAAF as the 23rd Fighter Group.

<blockquote data-quote="BlackBat242" data-source="post: 621977" data-attributes="member: 9868">Ummm - not &quot;surplus&quot; aircraft, and not just pilots:P-40C* Tomahawks were sent straight from the factory to China (actually, Burma, which is where the squadron was formed and trained).&nbsp;100 pilots and some 200 ground crew and administrative personnel were recruited (1 pilot had Visa problems and remained stateside, 10 US Army flight instructors went over in addition to the 99 pilots - some of those then joined as official AVG pilots.30 more pilots followed later.* AVG fighter aircraft came from a Curtiss assembly line which had just started producing Tomahawk IIB models for the Royal Air Force in North Africa. The Tomahawk IIB was similar to the U.S. Army's P-40C, but there is some evidence that Curtiss actually used leftover components when building the fighters intended for China, making them closer to the older P-40B/Tomahawk IIA specification - for instance the AVG aircraft had fuel tanks with external self-sealing coatings, rather than the more effective internal membranes as fitted to the P-40C/Tomahawk IIB.In May 1942 50 new P-40Es were sent to the AVG - on 4 July 1942 the AVG was formally disbanded and absorbed into the USAAF as the 23rd Fighter Group.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="BlackBat242, post: 621977, member: 9868"] Ummm - not "surplus" aircraft, and not just pilots: P-40C* Tomahawks were sent straight from the factory to China (actually, Burma, which is where the squadron was formed and trained). 100 pilots and some 200 ground crew and administrative personnel were recruited (1 pilot had Visa problems and remained stateside, 10 US Army flight instructors went over in addition to the 99 pilots - some of those then joined as official AVG pilots. 30 more pilots followed later. * AVG fighter aircraft came from a Curtiss assembly line which had just started producing Tomahawk IIB models for the Royal Air Force in North Africa. The Tomahawk IIB was similar to the U.S. Army's P-40C, but there is some evidence that Curtiss actually used leftover components when building the fighters intended for China, making them closer to the older P-40B/Tomahawk IIA specification - for instance the AVG aircraft had fuel tanks with external self-sealing coatings, rather than the more effective internal membranes as fitted to the P-40C/Tomahawk IIB. In May 1942 50 new P-40Es were sent to the AVG - on 4 July 1942 the AVG was formally disbanded and absorbed into the USAAF as the 23rd Fighter Group. [/QUOTE]

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