The above WWII Army Air Corps’ Pilot Training Film is courtesy of Zero’s Drive in Videos, and it is 35:41 in length.  Remember to click on the full-screen view button of the video in the lower right hand corner of the film’s start up screen, if you’d enjoy seeing the larger screen version displayed.

The Flying Tiger’s shark mouthed P-40 is one of the most iconic aircraft of WWII. Here, above, you can watch the film used to actually train P-40 pilots. It was produced by P-40 manufacturer Curtiss-Wright (remember Curtiss? They produced the First Aero’s Jenny in 1916 & 17), and it is in rare WWII color. One of our long-standing active members, Roger Nichols’s (the current Flight Captain of the Order of Daedalians Flight 24, of El Paso, Texas) own father, Major General Frank Nichols, was stationed at Pearl Harbor on the day it was attacked by the Japanese Imperial Air Forces on December 7, 1941. The then young Lieutenant took off to fight the overwhelming enemy forces in his P-40 Warhawk, which he continued to fly on other missions in the South Pacific War Theater, before transferring to other types of aircraft, such as the P-38 Lightening. Claire Chenault’s Flying Tiger’s (see above photo of Flying Tiger version with its unique paint job) deadly weapon in China was the P-40.  It was the Army Air Corp’s main front-line fighter at the outbreak of the War. Not as agile as a Japanese Zero, the P-40 nevertheless made up for that with speed, especially in a dive – – – and firepower. This rugged Curtiss-Wright built plane served the Allies around the world, from the deserts of North Africa to the jungles of SE Asia.

The aircraft featured in the above manufacturer’s film is a P-40F or L, both models of which were powered by Packard built British Rolls Royce Merlins for better high altitude performance. Other P-40 versions were powered by American Allison engines.  P-40s supplied to Commonwealth countries were known as “Kittyhawks.”The other variant of the Curtiss Fighter was known as the Tomahawk.

The above WWII training film was reproduced by Zeno, Zeno’s Warbird Video Drive-In.

Check out their P-40 DVD with two more videos & the iconic airplane’s actual pilot’s manual. You can visit their aviation DVD storet for one of the World’s broadest selections of World War II &  other vintage jet aircraft aviation videos, too.