P-35A Philippines Defender

[KSaarni]

Extremely nice result Carlos!

I just LOVE the looks! A heavily used P-35A !

- Kari

[Stikpusher]

Thank you Kari! It came out well enough.

[Stuart]

Sorry Carlos, I hadn't realised you'd post up some glamour shits - honestly I'm so far behind on the boards at the moment it's going to take me an age to catch up. As I said on your Children of Doom thread, it really does look excellent - the painting and weathering especially.

It's a funny looking aircraft the P-35 - I do like it. It's definitely a bridge between the early between-wars bi-planes and monoplanes like the Peashooter, and the later WWII era aircraft.

[Stikpusher]

Thank you Stuart! No worries about playing catch up. Life happens, and this forum can be slow or busy in the meantime. You are dead on with your assessment of the P-35. It was the first US Army fighter plane with retractable landing gear, with the P-26 being the Army’s first monoplane fighter. The P-36 was ordered as a back up to the P-35, as the Army Air Corps was worried that Seversky could not produce the type in the numbers needed in the time required. The P-36 would surpass the P-35 in numbers serving, as well as evolving into the world famous P-40 when its’ radial engine was replaced by the in line Allison V-1710.

[Stuart]

I didn't know that about the P-36, or that they'd actually served in the USAAF - I thought they'd all been built for export. Not a bad aircraft at all, certainly the RAF used it's Mohawks in Burma right up until mid 1944.

You learn something everyday.

[Stikpusher]

The P-36 was fairly widespread in service in the US Army Air Corps, but was being replaced by P-40s at the outbreak of war. Several we able to get airborne and score kills during the Pearl Harbor Attack. That was their only combat in US service, with France, the UK, China, and Finland having their Hawks see far more combat during the war.

[Medicman71]

It looks great Stik! Really like all the chipping!

[Stikpusher]

Thanks Mike! That was my favorite part of the finish portion of this project.