One Of The Last Airworthy Examples Of The Aircraft Acquired By The Collings Foundation

The Collings Foundation has acquired one of the last flyable examples of the P-40B Warhawk from a museum in the U.K. and plans to bring the airplane back to the U.S. to participate in air shows and other events.

The purchase of the airplane was completed last week, according to information posted on the Foundation's website. Collings Foundation executive director Robert Collings told Fox News that "it was obvious that we needed to get this airplane back to America."

The purchase was made possible by donor who wishes to remain anonymous, Collings said. It was purchased for "several million dollars" from The Fighter Collection in Duxfod, England. The purchaser will donate the airplane to the Collings Foundation, which will bring the non-profit organization's collection to an even dozen airplanes.

The P-40 could not be listed as an NDH airplane. It was deployed at Pearl Harbor but somehow managed to escape damage during the attack because it was in a hangar undergoing repairs following a gear-up landing. Seven weeks later, after it returned to service, it impacted a mountain on Oahu, resulting in the fatal injury of the pilot. The airplane was not recovered from the remote accident site until the 1980s, when a private group salvaged the airplane and restored it to flying condition using parts from two similar airplanes. It returned to flying status in 2003, and was acquired by the Museum.

The Collings Foundation says that the aircraft is in the process of being shipped back to the U.S., where "we hope to have this very rare and iconic aircraft on display and flying in honor of our WWII Veterans for years to come."

(Image used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Image courtesy Tony Hisgett via Wikimedia)

FMI: www.collingsfoundation.org