This is a fast-moving, free-wheeling industry in which aircraft frequently change hands, few long-term records are kept, and aircraft are quickly out of sight and out of mind-leaving participants to mentally reconstruct events from many years before. In fact, AK295’s history from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s is extraordinarily muddled, with each new source seemingly contradicting previous bits of information.Īnd yet, this is not unusual in the warbird restoration business. It may have been damaged by exploding ordnance during the initial recover, but probably wasn’t. It may have been recovered from the ground in 1990, 1993, 1994, 1996-or another year. It may have been first spotted by satellite imagery. How and when this aircraft was found, recovered, and brought back to life is subject to considerable debate, however, and the true story was lost as AK295 changed hands repeatedly over the past 20 years. In February 1942, it crash-landed in Siberia-where it remained reasonably intact for decades.
#Warbirds crash manual#
If ignoring US flight manual procedures trashed engines, it may also have contributed to the longevity of airframes by making the Curtiss fighters serious adversaries.īut longevity was not in the cards for AK295. Some Soviet veteran aviators of World War II expressed high regard for the Tomahawk, revealing how they boosted its performance by stripping excess equipment and running hotter throttle settings to make their early P-40s more aggressive against German fighters. Identified with the RAF number AK295, it was technically a Tomahawk IIB-essentially equivalent to the USAAC’s P-40C. The Tomahawk’s odyssey began when it was earmarked for the British Royal Air Force and then transferred to the Soviet Union in December 1941. The restoration shunned the iconic, but now ubiquitous, “Flying Tiger” shark’s mouth paint scheme to create instead a rugged-looking US Army Air Corps fighter of the type that rose to meet Japanese warplanes over Pearl Harbor on Dec. Restoration technology now makes it feasible to resurrect historic aircraft from little more than dented scraps of metal.Ī striking example of this artistry is one Curtiss P-40C Tomahawk that survived a crash landing in 1942 to emerge as an award-winning restoration indistinguishable from the day it rolled off the Curtiss assembly line in 1941. They refused to be taken to the hospital.The scarcity of some World War II airframes today drives a small industry that can take what can only be described as airplane DNA and deliver a restored, flying aircraft. Two people were removed from the plane by the fire department and were treated for minor injuries. According to MFMD, the landing gear failed, and the plane broke in half behind the cockpit, causing it to crash nose-down before coming to a stop on the runway. However, the Warbird crash-landed towards the end of the runway. Firefighters at the airport said one of the planes landed without incident, and a second plane did a fly-by with the landing gear stowed.
MFMD says three planes were flying in formation mid-air during the incident.
One of the planes was an Air Force Warbird.
MESA (3TV/CBS 5) - Officials say two planes flying over Mesa collided mid-air, causing one to crash land at Falcon Field Municipal airport Friday afternoon.Ī spokesperson with the Mesa Fire and Medical Department said they received initial reports of two planes declaring an emergency landing at Falcon Field after reporting they had experienced a mid-air collision around 12:45 p.m.
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