Wearing its elaborate Arizona rattlesnake nose art, the composite Curtiss P-40E ‘41-25163’ outside at Pima in early August. JOHN BEZOSKY
The latest addition to the burgeoning Pima Air and Space Museum collection near Tucson, Arizona, went on display in early August, in the shape of a Curtiss P-40E. The composite machine was restored in Rob Greinert’s workshop at Albion Park, New South Wales.
John Bezosky, the collections manager at Pima, says of the machine, „Since it is not a single-airframe restoration, we had to select an identity and paint job for it. We settled on a USAAF 49th Fighter Group P-40E, 41-25163, with the name Arizona and rattlesnake nose art on the engine cowling”. The pilot of that machine, operating from Darwin and later Port Moresby, was seven-victory ace Lt Sidney Woods, who played quarterback for the University of Arizona football team from 1935-39.
