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Curtiss P-40 Warhawk
“Tomahawk & Kittyhawk”

Q: Can I fly in a P-40 Warhawk?

No. The P-40 is a retired World War II fighter. A few dozen restored Warhawks still fly at airshows but there are no public passenger rides. You can, however, fly in several genuine ex-military jets today via MiGFlug.

Q: What is the difference between the Tomahawk, Kittyhawk and Warhawk?

They are all the same Curtiss P-40 design. Warhawk was the US Army name for every version. The RAF called the early lightly armed models Tomahawk and the later better-armed six-gun models Kittyhawk.

Q: How many P-40s were built?

Roughly 13,700 across all variants between 1939 and 1944, a figure often quoted as 13,738, making it one of the most-produced American fighters of the Second World War.

Q: Are any P-40 Warhawks still flying?

Yes. A few dozen restored P-40s remain airworthy and are regular performers at airshows and in museum collections worldwide, though none are available for public rides.

Not the fastest or the highest-flying fighter of World War II — but rugged, cheap and available in numbers when the Allies had almost nothing else. The shark-mouthed workhorse of the Flying Tigers, the desert, the Pacific and the Eastern Front.

~580 km/hTop speed · P-40E (362 mph)

~13,700Aircraft built · 1939–1944

1938First flight · XP-40 prototype

28Air forces that flew it

Photo: Lt. R.T. Smith, AVG “Flying Tigers” · Public domain

RoleFighter & ground-attackEraWorld War IIДвигатель1 × Allison V-1710OriginUSA · Curtiss-WrightStatusRetired (warbirds fly)Want to fly a real fighter yourself?

История

The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk: the fighter that was simply there

The P-40 was never the best fighter of the Second World War, and everyone who flew it knew it. It could not climb with a Messerschmitt, could not turn with a Zero, and ran out of breath above about 15,000 feet. What it could do was be built by the thousand, delivered on time, and take a beating that would have destroyed a more delicate machine — and in 1941 and 1942, when the Allies were losing almost everywhere, that mattered more than elegance.

It grew out of the radial-engined Curtiss P-36 Hawk. Curtiss engineers bolted a liquid-cooled Allison V-1710 V-12 to the P-36 airframe, and the prototype XP-40 first flew in 1938. Orders followed quickly — the US Army Air Corps and, through direct purchase and later Lend-Lease, Britain and France. In April 1939 the Army placed what was then the largest US fighter order ever. The RAF called its early examples the Tomahawk; later, more heavily armed models became the Kittyhawk; to the Americans they were all Warhawks.

The Allison engine was the aircraft’s defining strength and its defining weakness. It was reliable, robust and made good power low down, but its single-stage, single-speed supercharger meant performance fell away sharply at height. So the P-40 was flown the way its engine wanted to be flown: low and fast, in the ground-attack and dive-and-zoom roles, never as a high-altitude interceptor.

Its fame was made in China. The American Volunteer Group — the “Flying Tigers” under Claire Chennault — flew Tomahawks against the Japanese over China and Burma from late 1941. Chennault forbade his pilots to dogfight the nimble Japanese fighters; instead they used the P-40’s strengths: dive from height, fire a heavy burst, and zoom away, protected by an early-warning net of ground spotters. The tactic worked, and the group’s shark-mouthed fighters became one of the most recognisable images of the war.

That shark-mouth was not originally American. It had first appeared on the desert Tomahawks of RAF No. 112 Squadron in North Africa; the Flying Tigers copied it after seeing a photograph in a magazine. And North Africa is where the type did some of its hardest work — the Desert Air Force’s Kittyhawks flew relentless ground-attack and fighter sweeps over the Western Desert, where ruggedness and a heavy battery of guns counted for more than altitude.

The Warhawk fought almost everywhere: at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines in December 1941, through the Pacific and the Aleutians, over Italy, and in huge numbers on the Eastern Front, where thousands were shipped to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. When production ended in 1944, roughly 13,700 had been built — making it, by numbers, one of the most-produced American fighters of the war. It was obsolescent long before the end, but it had held the line when nothing better was available.

It was outclassed almost from the start — and it was everywhere, doing the work, when it counted most.The Warhawk paradox — second-rate on paper, indispensable in fact

01The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk’s altitude problem: why it fought low and fast

Every account of the P-40 comes back to the same limitation: the Allison V-1710 was fitted with only a single-stage, single-speed supercharger. Below about 12,000–15,000 feet it made solid power and the aircraft was fast and manoeuvrable enough to fight; above that, thrust bled away and the P-40 was left slow and sluggish exactly where high-altitude interceptors and escort fighters needed to operate.

The Merlin-engined P-40F tried to fix this by swapping in a Packard-built Rolls-Royce Merlin, and it did fly better at altitude — but Merlins were needed for the Spitfire and the emerging P-51 Mustang, so most Warhawks kept the Allison. The practical answer was doctrine, not engineering: commanders used the P-40 for what it was good at — low-level ground attack, fighter-bombing, and dive-and-zoom tactics — and sent Spitfires, Mustangs and Thunderbolts up high.

Design & Engineering

What makes the P-40 Warhawk special

Rugged enough to bring you home

The P-40’s single most praised quality was toughness. Its structure and liquid-cooled engine could absorb battle damage, rough desert strips and hard handling that would have grounded a lighter fighter. Pilots repeatedly brought back Warhawks streaming coolant or riddled with holes. In a war of attrition on primitive airfields, an aircraft that could be flown hard, patched up and flown again was worth more than a few knots of top speed.

The Allison V-1710 — strong low, breathless high

Power came from a single Allison V-1710 V-12 of around 1,150 hp. It was dependable and made good power at low level, but its single-stage supercharger left it gasping above ~15,000 ft. That one design choice shaped the whole career of the aircraft: fast and competitive down low, outclassed up high, and therefore committed to ground attack and low-altitude fighting.

Six .50-cals and a good dive

Later Warhawks carried six 0.50-inch (12.7 mm) Browning machine guns — a heavy, hard-hitting battery ideal for the slashing dive-and-zoom attacks Chennault taught. The airframe was strong and dived well, letting pilots convert height into speed, fire one devastating pass and extend away before a more agile enemy could react. It could not out-turn a Zero, so it was flown never to try.

02The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk’s dive-and-zoom tactics: how the Flying Tigers beat a better fighter

The Japanese A6M Zero and Ki-43 could out-turn and out-climb the P-40 easily. Claire Chennault’s answer, drilled into the American Volunteer Group, was to refuse the dogfight entirely. Tomahawks used ground spotters and radio to get advance warning, climbed above the incoming raid, then dived through it in pairs — one firing, one covering — using the P-40’s superior dive speed and heavy guns to destroy a target in a single pass before zooming back up to repeat. Turning to mix it up with a Zero was a good way to die; using speed and altitude was how the Tigers ran up their score. The same energy tactics later served P-40 units in the desert and the Pacific.

03Tomahawk, Kittyhawk, Warhawk: the P-40’s confusing family of names

The names track the variants and the customer. To the US Army every version was the Warhawk. The RAF called the early, lightly armed models (P-40B/C) Tomahawk, and the later, more powerful and better-armed models (P-40D onward, with the six-gun wing) Kittyhawk. The most-produced single model was the late-war P-40N. Under the skin they are all the same basic Curtiss design, progressively up-engined and up-gunned across roughly a dozen major variants.

Технические данные

Curtiss P-40E Warhawk: full specifications

Airframe & Performance

Экипаж: 1
Длина: 9.66 m (31 ft 9 in)
Размах крыльев: 11.38 m (37 ft 4 in)
Высота: 3.76 m (12 ft 4 in)
Loaded weight: ~4,000 kg (~8,800 lb)
Max speed: ~580 km/h (362 mph) at altitude
Крейсерская скорость: ~380 km/h (235 mph)
Служебный потолок: ~8,800–9,100 m (29,000–30,000 ft)
Диапазон: ~1,100–1,370 km (700–850 mi)

Propulsion, Armament & Programme

Двигатель: 1 × Allison V-1710-39 V-12
Power: ~1,150 hp (858 kW)
Вооружение: 6 × 0.50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning
Bomb load: Up to ~700 lb (320 kg)
First flight: 1938 (XP-40 prototype)
Introduced: 1939–1940
Built: ~13,700 (all variants, 1939–1944)
Unit cost: ~US$45,000–60,000 (1940s, estimate)
Cost per flight hour: No wartime figure; warbirds ~US$2,000–3,000/hr (estimate)

04The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk’s cost: cheap to build, expensive to keep flying today

Part of the P-40’s value to the Allies was simply that it was affordable and available. Period figures put a wartime Warhawk in the region of US$45,000–60,000 apiece (roughly a million or so in today’s money) — cheaper than the more sophisticated fighters that eventually replaced it, and buildable in enormous quantity. Exact per-aircraft prices varied by variant and contract, so treat any single figure as an estimate.

There is no meaningful wartime “cost per flight hour” in the modern sense. Today, keeping one of the few dozen airworthy P-40s flying is a different matter: warbird operators commonly cite operating costs in the low thousands of dollars per flight hour, driven by the rarity of the Allison engine, spares and skilled maintenance. Those figures are indicative, not official.

Timeline

The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk: from stopgap to workhorse

1938

XP-40 first flight

Curtiss mates the liquid-cooled Allison V-1710 to the radial-engined P-36 Hawk airframe; the prototype XP-40 flies for the first time.

1939

Into production

The US Army places a then-record fighter order; deliveries begin and Britain and France order the type, the RAF naming its examples the Tomahawk.

1941

The Flying Tigers form

Claire Chennault’s American Volunteer Group takes its shark-mouthed Tomahawks into action over China and Burma from late 1941.

Dec 1941

Pearl Harbor and the Philippines

P-40s are among the few US fighters to get airborne against the Japanese attacks; a handful of pilots score the first American aerial victories of the war.

1941–42

The Western Desert

Desert Air Force Tomahawks and Kittyhawks fly relentless ground-attack and fighter sweeps over North Africa, carrying the shark-mouth first worn by RAF No. 112 Squadron.

1942 on

Lend-Lease to the USSR

Thousands of Warhawks are shipped to the Soviet Union, where they serve widely on the Eastern Front as fighters and ground-attack aircraft.

1943

The Tuskegee Airmen fly the P-40

The 99th Fighter Squadron — the first African American US fighter unit — flies the Warhawk in combat over North Africa and Italy.

1944

Production ends

The last of roughly 13,700 P-40s leaves the Curtiss line as newer fighters take over frontline duties; the type soldiers on in secondary theatres.

Today

The warbird afterlife

A few dozen P-40s remain airworthy, their shark-mouths a fixture of airshows and museums worldwide.

Stories & Eyewitnesses

From the cockpit: twelve Warhawk stories

Origins

From Hawk to Warhawk

The P-40 was a radial-engined biplane-era design given a modern liquid-cooled V-12.

Read the full story

The P-40 did not start with a clean sheet. Curtiss took its existing P-36 Hawk — a capable but already-dated radial-engined fighter — and replaced the round engine with a streamlined liquid-cooled Allison V-1710. The result was cheaper and faster to field than an all-new design, which is exactly why the US Army bought it in quantity in 1939. That pragmatic origin explains both the P-40’s strengths and its ceiling: it was modern enough to fight in 1941, but its bones were older than its rivals’.

The shark-mouth

Borrowed from the desert

The Flying Tigers’ famous jaws were copied from RAF Tomahawks in North Africa.

Read the full story

The shark-mouth that made the P-40 iconic was not an American invention. It was first painted on the desert Tomahawks of RAF No. 112 Squadron, who had themselves taken the idea from German Messerschmitt Bf 110s. The American Volunteer Group saw a photograph of the 112 Squadron aircraft in a magazine and copied it onto their own Tomahawks in China. The marking fit the aircraft’s pointed nose and big radiator chin so well that it became permanently associated with the P-40.

Flying Tigers

Chennault’s rulebook

Never dogfight the Japanese — dive, fire, and run.

Read the full story

Claire Chennault understood that his Tomahawks could not out-turn or out-climb the Japanese fighters they faced. So he wrote a different rulebook for the American Volunteer Group: use radio and a net of ground observers to gain early warning, climb above the enemy, then attack in a fast diving pass and keep going. Pilots who ignored the doctrine and tried to dogfight tended not to survive it. Flown Chennault’s way, the Flying Tigers ran up a formidable reputation in the dark early months of 1942.

Flying Tigers

A contested scoreboard

The AVG was credited with hundreds of Japanese aircraft — the exact number is debated.

Read the full story

The American Volunteer Group is often credited with destroying around 300 Japanese aircraft for very light losses of its own between December 1941 and July 1942. Those figures, drawn from wartime claims and bounty records, are almost certainly generous — over-claiming was universal on all sides — and historians have revised the totals downward. What is not in doubt is the group’s outsized effect on morale at a moment when Allied news was almost uniformly bad.

Pearl Harbor

First blood, 7 December 1941

A few P-40 pilots got airborne into the Japanese attack and scored early kills.

Read the full story

When Japan struck Pearl Harbor, most American aircraft never left the ground. But Lieutenants George Welch and Kenneth Taylor reached their P-40s at a satellite field, took off into the raid, and shot down several attacking aircraft between them — among the first American aerial victories of the war. It was a small, defiant success on a catastrophic day, and it was flown in a Warhawk.

The desert

Kittyhawks over the sand

In North Africa the P-40 became a workhorse fighter-bomber.

Read the full story

The Western Desert suited the P-40. Fighting was often at low and medium altitude, where the Allison engine was at its best, and the campaign demanded exactly the rugged, gun-heavy ground-attack aircraft the Kittyhawk was. Desert Air Force squadrons flew it hard against Rommel’s supply lines and airfields, absorbing losses and dishing out punishment. The sand-and-shark-mouth Kittyhawk is one of the enduring images of the North African air war.

Aleutians

The cold war before the Cold War

P-40s fought Japan in the fog and ice of the Aleutian Islands.

Read the full story

Few remember that Japanese forces occupied part of the Aleutian island chain in 1942. The P-40s of the 11th Fighter Squadron — the “Aleutian Tigers,” who painted tiger heads on their noses in tribute to Chennault’s group — flew intercepts and escort missions in some of the worst flying weather on earth, downing Japanese aircraft over the freezing North Pacific before converting to P-38s in 1943.

Lend-Lease

The Soviet Warhawk

Thousands of P-40s served on the Eastern Front in Soviet hands.

Read the full story

The Soviet Union received large numbers of Tomahawks and Kittyhawks under Lend-Lease, and P-40s were among the first Western fighters to reach the hard-pressed Soviet air force in the winter of 1941–42. Soviet pilots used them as low- and medium-altitude fighters and ground-attack aircraft, where the type’s ruggedness and firepower were welcome, even if its high-altitude weakness drew criticism. The Warhawk quietly did some of its heaviest service on the Eastern Front.

Tuskegee

The 99th takes the P-40 to war

America’s first Black fighter squadron flew the Warhawk in combat.

Read the full story

The 99th Fighter Squadron — the first African American fighter unit in US service and part of the group that became famous as the Tuskegee Airmen — flew the P-40 in combat over North Africa and Italy in 1943. They cut their teeth on the Warhawk before moving on to the P-47 and the P-51 with which they became legendary, and their early combat record helped answer the doubters who said they should never have been trained to fight at all.

Ruggedness

Home on a wing and a prayer

P-40 pilots routinely brought back aircraft that should not have flown.

Read the full story

The word that follows the P-40 through every memoir is “tough.” Pilots told of Warhawks that came home with cylinders shot out, wings holed, control surfaces in tatters and coolant streaming — and still made it back to a rough forward strip. That durability, more than any performance figure, is why aircrews trusted it. In a fighter that was outclassed on paper, the fact that it tended to get you home again counted for a very great deal.

Late war

The most-built Warhawk

The lightweight P-40N was the final and most-produced version.

Read the full story

By the time the P-40N appeared, the design was clearly obsolescent — yet it was still worth building. Curtiss stripped weight, improved the engine installation and simplified construction to squeeze more performance and more airframes out of the line. The N became the most-produced single P-40 variant. Production finally ended in 1944, by which point newer fighters had taken over the glamorous roles and the Warhawk had settled into second-line and secondary-theatre work.

Legacy

Shark-mouths that never faded

Decades on, the P-40 remains one of the most recognisable warbirds alive.

Read the full story

Long after the last military P-40 was retired, the shark-mouth kept flying. A few dozen airworthy Warhawks — many restored at great expense — still appear at airshows around the world, and the marking has been copied onto everything from later jets to airliners. The aircraft that was never quite good enough became, in memory, one of the most beloved fighters of the war: proof that being there, and being tough, can matter more than being best.

Gallery

The Warhawk in pictures

Flying Tigers P-40 Tomahawks with shark-mouth nose art in flight, 1942 the image that made the aircraft famous. — Flying Tigers P-40 Tomahawks with shark-mouth nose art in flight, 1942 — the image that made the aircraft famous.Photo: Lt. R.T. Smith, AVG “Flying Tigers” · Public domain

The P-40s pointed nose and chin radiator made the perfect canvas for the shark-mouth. — The P-40’s pointed nose and chin radiator made the perfect canvas for the shark-mouth.Photo: US Army Air Forces · Public domain

A Curtiss Kittyhawk Mk I of RAF No. 112 Squadron in the Western Desert, Egypt, 1942 the unit whose shark-mouth the Flying Tigers copied. — A Curtiss Kittyhawk Mk I of RAF No. 112 Squadron in the Western Desert, Egypt, 1942 — the unit whose shark-mouth the Flying Tigers copied.Photo: RAF official photographer · IWM (COL196) · Public domain

Curtiss Tomahawks of the Soviet 126th Fighter Aviation Regiment near Moscow, December 1941, supplied under Lend-Lease.Photo: Soviet Air Force · Public domain (CC0)

A restored P-40N Warhawk in modern warbird colours a few dozen still fly. — A restored P-40N Warhawk in modern warbird colours — a few dozen still fly.Photo: Eric Friedebach · CC BY 2.0

A P-40 Warhawk in flight, its lines little changed from the P-36 Hawk it grew out of.Photo: Tony Hisgett · CC BY 2.0

Watch

The Warhawk in motion

A hand-picked, high-authority P-40 Warhawk video will be featured here soon. Video coming soon. In the meantime, explore the photo gallery above and the eyewitness stories for the full picture of the shark-mouthed fighter.

Operations

Where the Warhawk flew

Combat Record

The score that defines the Warhawk

The P-40’s record is not written in kill ratios — against the best Axis fighters it was usually the underdog. It is written in ubiquity and endurance: the aircraft that was there in numbers, in every theatre, when the Allies needed something to fight with. Its most famous exploits came from flying to its strengths and refusing the enemy’s game.

~300Japanese aircraft credited to the Flying Tigers (wartime claim, likely high)

~13,700Built — among the most-produced US fighters of the war

28Nations that flew it in combat and service

Compare the combat record of every military aircraft. Figures as of July 2026 and, where wartime, hedged as estimates.

Questions & Answers

Everything people ask about the P-40 Warhawk

Can I fly in a P-40 Warhawk?

No — the P-40 is a retired World War II fighter, and while a few dozen restored Warhawks still fly at airshows, there are no public passenger rides in one. You can, however, fly in several genuine ex-military jets today — see migflug.com/flights-prices/.

Was the P-40 a good fighter?

It was average on paper and outclassed at altitude, but rugged, cheap and available in huge numbers. Flown to its strengths — low-level combat, ground attack and dive-and-zoom tactics — it was effective, and it held the line in 1941–42 when the Allies had little else.

Why does the P-40 have a shark mouth painted on it?

The shark-mouth was first painted on the desert Tomahawks of RAF No. 112 Squadron in North Africa. The Flying Tigers copied it after seeing a magazine photograph, and the marking — a perfect fit for the P-40’s pointed nose and chin radiator — became permanently associated with the aircraft.

What is the difference between the Tomahawk, Kittyhawk and Warhawk?

They are all the same Curtiss P-40 design. “Warhawk” was the US Army name for every version. The RAF called the early, lightly armed models “Tomahawk” and the later, better-armed six-gun models “Kittyhawk.”

How many P-40s were built?

Roughly 13,700 across all variants between 1939 and 1944 — a figure often quoted as 13,738 — making it one of the most-produced American fighters of the Second World War.

Who were the Flying Tigers?

The American Volunteer Group, a unit of American pilots recruited to fight for China under Claire Chennault. Flying shark-mouthed P-40 Tomahawks over China and Burma from late 1941, they became famous for their dive-and-zoom tactics against Japanese aircraft.

Are any P-40 Warhawks still flying?

Yes — a few dozen restored P-40s remain airworthy and are regular performers at airshows and in museum collections around the world, though none are available for public rides.

The part of the collection you can touch