A naval Warhawk?

[johnniewc68]

I found these rare and amazing photos showing Curtiss P-40 Warhawk on the deck or operating on aircraft carriers. There was a naval version of this fighter? To see the photos, visit the link below:


http://aviacaoemfloripa.blogspot.com.br/2011/02/curtiss-p-40-em-porta-avioes.html


Best Regards!

[Mac1949]

1. Nice find! Can't find any evidence for a Naval version, though.

Deliveries to our allies and Marine Corps units were made using escort carriers, which is what I suspect is happening in these photos.
:

[Ex Lurker]

2. One way flights. Aircraft carriers would ferry the planes across the Pacific Ocean

to their destination, then they would be flown off to nearby land bases. Also done with P47's. I've never heard of it done with P38s or P51s. Catapults weren't necessary with WWII aircraft; you couldn't do this with modern jets. As you can see from one of the pictures, they're being loaded aboard with a crane. Landing was impossible without tailhooks and heavier undercarriages, which Army Air Corps planes didn't have. Also note the lack of folding wings, which made storage problematic. In several pictures, the planes are stacked nose to tail, with no room to take off. In this case, they would be unloaded manually instead of being flown off.

Of course the most famous "ferry" mission was the Doolittle Raid, when B25's were flown off the Hornet on a one way mission to bomb Tokyo. The plan was for them to land in China after the raid. Some made it to their final landing fields, most crashed or crash landed after running out of fuel.