My other "What if" project I have pics of

[Ollie]

Apparently TC let him do it!

 :dum:  

[upnorth]

Apparently TC let him do it!

  :dum:

"TC"?  Who, or what is "TC"?

Anyway, thanks for the continuing possitive feedback on both the model and the back story. I alsways try to strive for a certain level of plausibility in my hypothetical projects, I usually do more research for them than I do for my normal modeling projects.

Here's a bit more technical information on the Nighthawk and its development:

Nighthawk NF.MK.1 (Total production: 60 aircraft including 2 prototypes)
No radar, two upward firing 20mm cannon, 4 forward firing .50 calibre guns. Type maintained P-40's Alison Engine as a power plant driving two contra rotating three blade props.

Nighthawk NF.MK.1b (Total production: 80 aircraft, mainly refitted MK.1)
Same as for MK.1 except for added radar on the right wing and forward firing reduced to three guns. Landing gear was also somewhat strengthened as the MK.1 was prone to landing gear collapses due to increased fuselage weight.

Nighthawk NF.MK.2 (Total production: 5 aircraft all prototypes)
MK.2 was all new airframe with extended wings and other control surfaces. Radar was moved from wing to centreline and forward fire was provided by two 20mm cannons, one in each wing. All MK.2 prototypes survive in museums except the 4th and 5th which were lost in unsuccessful carrier trials of an proposed navalised type.

Nighthawk NF.MK.2b (Total production: 220)
The MK.2b was the definitive Nighthawk which included all the refinements represented by the first 3 MK.2 prototypes. It was powered by an Australian built Rolls Royce Griffon which drove contra rotating three blade props (late in the war several MK.2b were seen with contra rotating 4 blade props and single 5 blade props) The Mk.2 had substantially stronger landing gear than the MK.1 and airframe weight related gear failures were unheard of in the MK.2.

Nighthawk NF.MK2c (Total production: 112 including 12 Commonwealth built airframes provided to USAAF)
The American variant of the Nighthawk was basically a lisence built MK.2b, production of the type was carried out primarily by Curtiss and the American built Griffon engines were made by Packard.

After WWII the RAAF quickly withdrew the Nighthawk from front line service, but kept it on into the mid 50s for target tugging and general "hack" work.

The USAF used the Nighthawk very briefly in the opening months of the Korean War, but it was clearly outclassed by that time. The entirely of the USAF Nighthawk fleet had been retired by the end of February 1952.

So, is the history still sounding good?  

[Ollie]

TC is Transport Canada, or as you sometime hear in a hangar, the Gestapo!

:dum:  :dum:  :dum:  

[upnorth]

O.K. Should have guessed that, thanks.

[nev]

Upnorth, I really like your variant list, and that 2b sounds like a real wicked bird.  Can't wait to see that one being done

[Allan]

Hi Upnorth,

Pretty soon we're gonna hafta start worshipping you too.

Who would ever have thought of bunging a gunner in a P-40?

Frivolously fantastic!!!

Might interesting Alternate History too mate.

Allan in Canberra

[upnorth]

Well don't start worshipping too quick, I'm on a modeling hiatus, most of my models and modeling gear are packed up in boxes at my mom's place back in Canada. I'm running a pretty busy English teaching schedule at the moment and my own studies of the Czech language take a pretty good chunk of time too. I also don't have a lot of space for modeling given my current housing situation here in the Czech Republic. (There's also the issue of having a new girlfriend! )

The MK.2b will come one day, but lots of work up sketches have to come first. I've got to decide what of the P-40 to keep and what to alter beyond recognition. Its important to me that I keep the essential P-40ness of the type, so I'll be drawing and redrawing and researching for a while yet.

Thanks again for all the good comments.

[Captain Canada]

want someone to ship you a few $10 monogram 40s from Wal Mart ? Then all's you need is a knis and some sandpaper, start plugging away. You could make the Czech prortotype !

 

[Davey B]

W O W !  

It's like... someone in Curtiss saw a Fairey Firefly and thught, "feck it, we can do better!"  

Top stuff!

[upnorth]

want someone to ship you a few $10 monogram 40s from Wal Mart ? Then all's you need is a knis and some sandpaper, start plugging away. You could make the Czech prortotype !

Well, what I learned from the 1/72 scale project is that a heck of a lot more than a knife and sandpaper are needed to get two P-40s together.

I'm not sure the Monogram P-40 would get the look I want, its the short fuselage B version and the Academy kit I went from in 1/72 was an M/N version.

I'm hoping one day to catch a couple of AMT's 1/48 P-40N kits cheap for the project. I never liked AMT kits much, so I'd have no aversion to chopping them up for this if I could get them at a fair price. I also want to find an aftermarket Griffon engine so I have some idea of how much front end room it will require and the shape of the space it will fill.

DaveyB:

Yep, then Curtiss saw the BF-110 with the "Skragmuzik" (sp.?) and said: "You know, they might be onto something there."

[Tophe]

Hi Upnorth,
Allan in Canberra

Seen from Camberra, we are all upnorth with Upnorth, no?...

[Allan]

I quite agree, Tophe

Allan in Canberra who had a lovely bottle of cold, crisp Aussie white with his wife last night

[Tophe]

Dear Upnorth, I need your help, as I would like to build the (drawing of) Upnorth 2-seat versions of my P-40/51 mixes Mustooling and Warstang then P-51B herself. For that, I need imagining how precisely your P-40N turned into the improved one, to apply the same figures to the others.
Could you confirm the drawing below quite matches your creation?
Thanks a lot, dear Upnorth...  

[Hobbes]

"Skragmuzik" (sp.?)

it's 'Schräge Musik'

[upnorth]

Tophe:

Here's what I did to stretch my P-40 fuselage:

1: I cut the rear fuselage of the first P-40 off just aft of the wing root at the wing's trailing edge and cut the front end of the second P-40 off just aft of the back edge of the canopy glass (not the sliding glass section, the smaller angled side windows behind that).

2: I layed the front and back halves together and filed and sanded until I got them the way I wanted. The spine on my stretched P-40 is razor straight to the vertical stabilizer, much like a Fairey Firefly, not angled down as you have it in your drawing.

3: I measured the sliding section of the canopy from one of the kits and cut an equivalent opening in the rear halves before glueing them together. I had to use a few shims and such to coax the rear halves a little wider to properly accecpt the canopy and rear cockpit.

4: I built the front half of the aircraft as per kit instructions, but ommiting the windows aft of the sliding canopy section.

5: I joined the front and rear halves of the fuselage and sanded away any wing root section that remained on the back half of the fuselage before filling the junction between the halves.

Other notes:

There is a fairing that runs along the aircraft's centreline on the underside from just aft of the engine to the flap region of the wings. This fairing is untouched in my conversion.

The upward firing guns are locked in the forward angle you see in my build. This was intentional and I planned  for locked gun positions in the actual aircraft too.

The front prop and spinner are standard P-40 parts, the rear prop is an add on from the conversion.

The gunner's canopy contains more framing than the pilot's, but I'm strongly considering replacing both the gunner's canopy and sliding section of pilot's canopy with a more bulged "Malcolm" type canopy for improved visibility for the MK.2.

I hope that answers your questions, feel free to show me a reworked drawing if you do one and have any further questions.

I'd like to thank everyone again for the possitive attention on this build, it was far more than I expected it might get. Pacific Theatre "what if" doesn't seem to carry the same popularity as dull old "Luft 46" stuff does for some reason.