The correct answer for this month’s contest is the second place finisher that became a true star on the world-wide stage that was the Second World War (WW II). The famous Curtis Hawk Series of biplane fighters were clearly nearing the end of their useful service life when the US Army issued a request for a new fighter design in 1934. All contending aircraft had to be ready for tests by the end of 1935.

In answer to this request, Curtis removed one wing from their last bi-plane fighter, narrowed the fuselage, added wing-mounted retractable landing gear and then pulled everything along with a bigger, 900 HP, radial engine. Sound familiar? This is exactly what Grumman did to make the F-4-F Wildcat (another contest answer). And just as the Wildcat was successful, so was Curtis’s P-36A Hawk Army fighter.

But the Curtis P-36A did not win the subsequent 1936 trials, even though the Curtis entry, called the Hawk 75, was ready for tests in May, 1935. In fact, all four entries finished “second” as none were considered acceptable by the Army. Since there was no one winning design, all the entries were given extra development time with three new examples of each ordered by the Army for further testing.
Curtis replaced the 900 HP engine with an experimental Twin Wasp of 1,050 HP and won the next competition. The P-36A was born and the Army ordered 210 of them. In addition, an export version was designed that had fixed landing gear and an 875 HP engine, dubbed the Hawk 75M (more on that shortly).

The aircraft pictured in the contest photo is the tenth P-36A ever built. It was assigned to Wright Field, USAAF Base, for full testing. By looking closely, it is just possible to see the black diamond with yellow letters that was the official logo painted on all aircraft undergoing tests at Wright.



P-36A deliveries were complete just before the Pearl Harbor attack. Hawk 75’s were also delivered to France, Norway, the Netherlands, Great Britain and several South American countries. Only the South American countries used the fixed gear models. Unfortunately, the European countries fell to the invading German forces before most of the Hawks could be delivered and assembled. However, France did get five Hawks into the air and they actually managed to down several Luftwaffe aircraft before France surrendered. The undelivered Hawks went to Great Britain, which sent them to Egypt, or to the Dutch Pacific possessions, to defend against possible Japanese attacks.

China also used Hawk 75’s against the Japanese. It is hard to imagine the courage their pilots must have had flying the P-36A, with its slow top speed of 313 mph, large turning radius, weak 2,300 fpm climb rate and meager two-gun, one 30 cal. and one 50 cal, armament, against the nimble Japanese Zero’s two 20 mm cannons and two heavy machine guns. The Zero could outrun the Hawk, almost double its climb rate and could make a turn nearly twice as tight.

But American pilots must have been just as brave as their Chinese counterparts. Four of the only six fighters to rise against the Japanese during their attack on Pearl Harbor were P-36A’s. These four P-36A Hawks shot down several of the attacking Japanese before the escorting Zeros could drive them away. P-36A’s also helped defend the Philippines and other US Pacific Island bases during those dark, early days.

But how do these early, but few, successes make the P-36A such a star? Remember those other two aircraft we mentioned that completed the six Pearl Harbor defenders? They were two Curtis P-40 Tomahawk fighters. Look closely at the P-36A and the P-40 pictured below:



Notice that the under-wing and rudder paint schemes match. As best we can tell, it was the very same P-36A pictured in the contest photo, shown undergoing flight performance data evaluation for later comparison purposes, which was then sent back to Curtis for conversion into the first P-40 pictured in the above photo. The conversion involved mounting the Allison in-line 1,040 HP engine and its required cooling equipment. The airframe remained essentially unchanged.

P-40 horsepower eventually climbed to over 1,300 and the Tomahawk went on to hold the line as America’s frontline Army fighter, along with the Lockheed P-38 and Bell P-39, during the first 18 months of WW II. Tomahawks served with every major Allied air service during the war. 100 Tomahawks served with the American Volunteer Group (AVG) in China, the famous Flying Tigers. (It is not generally known that the AVG flew their first mission against Japanese aircraft two weeks after December 7.)
Well over 15,000 P-40 Tomahawks were built. And it all started because of the lowly, “second place” finisher shown in the contest photo.



As to the four Name the Airplane clues:
The P-43 Lancer’s retractable landing gear folded inwards like the P-47:
Obviously, the landing gear on the contest photo aircraft retracted to the rear, not inwards. Even though the P-43 does resemble the P-36A in many respects, the landing gear is a dead giveaway.

The Ki-43 III had a bubble canopy. Captured Japanese aircraft were usually painted bright red during tests:
The P-36A obviously has a turtle deck behind the straight canopy; not a bubble canopy. It would be hard to mistake the P-36A’s bright aluminum finish for red paint as well.

By the time the P-47 Prototype flew in 1942, the US insignia did not have the red center dot.
In the confused melee’ that was a WW-II dogfight, the red dot in the center of the pre-war US markings could be easily confused with the red Japanese “meat ball” insignia. Almost as soon as the war began, the red dot was removed from standard US markings. But the P-36A in the photo has the pre-war insignia with the red dot.

Test aircraft at Wright Field, Ohio always had a yellow and black fuselage emblem in place of the usual US insignia.
Although small, a yellow and black “something” can be clearly seen on the rear side of the P-36A in the photo.

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