A Domestic Failure That Became An International Success | Curtiss P-36 Hawk [Aircraft Overview #33]

I Made some slight creative changes to the thumbnail and video editing, hope you like it :) F.A.Q Section Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both. Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos? A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :) Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators? A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible. Feel free to leave you questions below - I may not be able to answer all of them, but I will keep my eyes open :)

for an already obsolete plane, the fact that they were still able to not only take on superior fighters in larger numbers than the P36 but was able to secure kills and damage to those superior fighters shows that they could have been good but was simply superseded by newer fighters

It has always impressed me how Curtis basically took a sound airframe, altered the geometry to fit an Alison V12 and morphed the P36 into the P40 which arguably became one of the most robust fighters ever built. The P40 was to my knowledge the only single-seat fighter capable of high speed turns without damage to the wing spar, something the Spitfire and Zero could not do.

One of my favorite WW2 fighters. The one displayed at the Museum of the United States Air Force depicts Lt. Philip Rasmussen climbing into his P-36 during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was wearing his striped pajamas, having been awakened by the Japanese bombs. That was him shown at 7:33.

I am always amazed at the Finnish pilot's ability to produce outstanding results using what many considered mediocre obsolete aircraft (P-36, Buffalos, Fokker D-21).

On first encountering Focke Wulf 190s, RAF pilots were told they were probably P36s from the French delivery now being used by the Luftwaffe. The pilots reply was ' really, any chance we could get some '!

I enjoyed that you included a little bit about some of the survivors I wish more historians would do that with aircraft and add a little history about each aircraft. It would’ve been nice if you could have mentioned a few more of the survivors.

Some modifications in finland. "The aircraft purchased in Finland were originally armed with four or six 7.5 mm machine guns, but in 1942–1943 the State Aircraft Factory replaced the machine guns with one or two 12.7 mm Colt machine guns and installed two 7.7 mm Browning machine guns on each wing. Some 12.7 mm Berez UB war machine guns or LKk / 42 machine guns developed in Finland on the basis of the Colt machine gun were also fitted to some aircraft. The German Revi 3D or C / 12D reflector sight or a copy made by Vaisala in Finland was installed on the machines. Bomb hangers and light bomb tanks were removed as unnecessary. In December 1943, seat armor was ordered to be removed because bullets up to 7.7 mm fired at close range would pass through them." wikipedia. translated from finnish. Engines was changed to Twin Wasp, because lack of spare parts. Performance was good compared to many others fighters.

"A Domestic Failure That Became An International Success" That's basically almost every Curtiss-Wright planes during this era, save for some oddballs like SB2C or XP-55 that were just a failure.

Finally. I have stumbled upon an aviation version of Drachinifel. A gentleman with knowledge and who can use the English language without making Mr Johnson turn in his grave. I have liked and subscribed. I'd share on the social media. But I don't have any of them. Perhaps I shall recommend this channel in my local Television Guide. ,🤔

Considering the fact that it led to the P40 and the various forces that used it, the P36 did ok. The weirdest thing was the vichy French P36 fighting Wildcats.

Thank you for this information. I’ve studied aviation and military aviation my entire 60 year life. I’m a medically retired airline pilot and miss flying but found a truth I didn’t completely understand when I flew for a living. I love aircraft and the incredible people who designed them (design them even today) as much if not more than flying the aircraft. To put aviation into my families history. My grandmother and grandfather (paternal) were born in 1892 and 1889 perspectively. They both saw the Wrights make headlines as young men and women. Grandma finished college and taught elementary and high school from 1922-1963. What’s amazing is their lives saw this nation go from horse and buggy to the US Space shuttle launch! I grew up with my dad flying super cubs, Piper Arrows and Cessna 150-172’s. I lived in Roswell NM when Boeing needed a large runway and open airspace to train the thousands of 747 crews that began taking delivery of that platform in last years of 1960’s and early years of 1970’s. It was such an exciting time to be a US citizen. Even with the problems we had it was truly amazing to see 747’s concords, etc for a young boy. Can you imagine what my grandparents thought? My grandfather lived almost 100 years. He left home at age 9 and traveled from Lincoln Texas to Silver City NM to work at the mines. He and 2 of his 18 siblings went with him, they walked! What’s amazing is this wasn’t unusual anywhere in the world at that time. It’s truly remarkable what influence Curtis and Wrights had on aviation.

Had a great kill-to-loss ratio in the hands of the French pilots who loved it in 1940 despite the aircraft being generally inferior to the bf 109. Some (all?) were assembled in the town of Bourges in the center of France. The facility still exists today it produces weapons and ammunition such as missiles now.

Just a piece of related trivia. Claire Chennault went to China to serve as Chiang Kai-shek's chief air advisor and commander of the American Volunteer Group (the Flying Tigers) early in the war (before the U.S. was even "officially" involved). Although the "Tigers" flew the P-40, Madam Chiang (Chiang Kai-shek's wife) presented Chennault with a P-36 Hawk as a gift. For the rest of his time in China he used that P-36 as his "personnel transportation" to visit the various bases under his command and all reports indicate he loved the plane!

Immensely enjoyable! Anything with a radial engine really turns my crank. Especially the beloved P&W 1830, an engine I was still happily rebuilding into the 1980's.

The Chinese Hawks suffered severely from the lack of an effective early warning system. At the time, this meant ground observers with a reliable telephone system, although radios were good enough and small enough to be possible. The lack of warning and ground control mean that it was hard for the Chinese Hawks to make intercepts. They seldom had enough time to take off, climb, and fly to the bombers before the bombers hit their target. Even if they had enough time, they were groping around trying to find the Japanese with no help--a radically different situation from the RAF over southern England. Imagine if the Spitfires had been going into battle with no one guiding them to the Nazi bomber formations. Late takeoffs also meant that they were far more likely to find Japanese fighters diving on them from above, which is a bad situation for anyone.

On it's maiden flight, the Northrup 3A took off, headed over the Pacific, and promptly disappeared. That is actually wild. If that happened today it would be front page news. The military industrial complex of the time just considered it a write off.

Love it! I asked for the P-36 and you delivered, a truly underrated aircraft with real chops

It was a time when obsolete meant a year or so old, and also meant it could kill you in an aerial engagement. Warplanes went from gaily painted, streamlined, and covered in heraldry to grimly functional things that looked every bit the weapon.

Great video packed with information and context. Thank you for pointing out the two kills achieved at Pearl Harbor. Because so much emphasis is placed on discussion of fleet damage and the destruction of planes on the ground, it isnt really mentioned that some of the dispersed planes got airborne and shot down some of the attackers.