P-40 Restoration Update

On my way back from attending the Flying Aces Club Nationals in Geneseo last week, I decided to take the ‘long way’ home and make a swing by Hammondsport in order to drop in on the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum. The museum had recently undergone a partial interior remodel which I wanted to see but more importantly, I wanted to check in on the progress of the P-40 restoration.

The museum has set up a separate shop for the P-40 restoration and signs inside the main museum direct you out back to the P-40 shop. While I was there, the shop was humming with activity. There were several restoration shop mechanics engaged in various restoration activities on the plane as well as a steady flow of museum visitors stopping by to view the plane and the progress being made on it.

And a lot of progress has taken place since the last time I was there. The main focus has been on the (re)construction of the 2 wings. The expectation is that very shortly the 2 wings halves will be mated together which will be a major milestone. The landing gear, which will be operational, are in the progress of being installed at this time. One gear is already installed and the second is nearing completion.

One other addition to the restoration shop since my last visit is the addition of interns. Students from the local Hammondsport high school are working with the restoration shop personnel on the restoration. What a great win-win all around. The museum gets much needed volunteer help while the interns learn about airplanes, gain valuable skills, and have a once in a life-time chance to work on such an historic restoration.

You can check out photos from my visit here or above. The photos are displayed in both a ‘Gallery’ format (above) for quickly scanning thru them and also in a captioned ‘Light box’ format (below) which allows for zooming in on individual pictures by clicking on them.

(Click on photos to zoom in on them)