Ever heard of a TP-39? Link to great site

http://www.geocities.com/daveymac82c/moreflying.html

*a P-40 with a Merlin up front, a scratchbuilt fuselage, wings cobbled back together after being sawn apart for transport years before, and a tail section containing a mix of Harvard and Bolingbroke bits…!

So basicly nothing P-40 about it :p Any pics?

If you’ve never seen the early-eighties Canadian National Film Board documentary about Mr Diemert, called “The Defender”…you absolutely must. It plays like some sort of cut-rate rural, aeronautical twist on the “mockumentary” genre, eg. “Spinal Tap”…but these guys were dead serious about what they were trying to do. You will bust a gut laughing…

The same Bob Diemert who recovered a Hurricane from a swamp and got it flying to the point where it was used in the aerial sequences of the BoB film. CF-SMI.

Mark

Both a Bit scary:eek:

I suppose the closest thing to a 4 seat warbird has to be the Yak 18T?
In the words of one flight tester: “the seats are a bit hard, but on a long flight, just roll inverted to ease the pain once in a while…” 😀

Steve T many thanks for that – fascinating…

Had heard of the restorer before in respect of the ex-CAF Zero which i understand had …er….issues!

Thanks for the post

TT

Well, it was almost certainly a USSR student, and likely a TP-39 that was never on the USAAF inventory (having been already assigned to the USSR), which is why it is not on the list of USAAF crashes.

No doubt there is a loss record somewhere in the Russian archives.

TT–

As the “who” listing on mustangsmustangs indicates, that Mustang was a “custom” job by the inimitable Bob Diemert in Manitoba. He did a few other interesting restorations too:

*an A6M-2 Zero with a Wright R2600 off a Mitchell, now at Pensacola
*another A6M-2 with a P&W R1830–more reasonable!–now in Hawaii
*a D3A-2 “Val” with an R2600, flew on the circuit as CF-TZT, now at Chino
*a Firefly AS.6 (CF-CBH) with a Merlin from a York and a six-seat aft cockpit
*a P-40 with a Merlin up front, a scratchbuilt fuselage, wings cobbled back together after being sawn apart for transport years before, and a tail section containing a mix of Harvard and Bolingbroke bits…!

All of the above aircraft actually flew–some of them rather well. The R1830 Zero, for instance, which is static now but used to fly with the Confederate AF, had a tremendous rate of climb. The Cyclone version apparently did too.

If you’ve never seen the early-eighties Canadian National Film Board documentary about Mr Diemert, called “The Defender”…you absolutely must. It plays like some sort of cut-rate rural, aeronautical twist on the “mockumentary” genre, eg. “Spinal Tap”…but these guys were dead serious about what they were trying to do. You will bust a gut laughing…

TP-39 is interesting too…but yeow, sure is ugly. Usually I like the dual control versions of WWII-era fighters, but that Cobra is just, well, wrong!

S.

TP-39 …supplied to and used by the Russians.

Mark

Blimey – to both of them!! 😮