Patrice Marchesson flying the first of three practice displays on 24 May 2023 at the Imperial War Museum Duxford airfield, with The Fighter Collection's Curtiss Hawk 75, G-CCVH.
The Curtiss P-36 Hawk, also known as the Curtiss Hawk Model 75 was a private venture which flew for the first time in May 1935. Following development and a new engine, three prototype aircraft were ordered by the US Army Air Corps under the designation Y1P-36. This eventually led to the P-36 lineage which went on to serve with around a dozen air arms across the world, including the USAAC as the P-36, the RAF as the Mohawk, and France as the H-75.
This Hawk is one of the 100 in the first production batch sent to the French Air Force, and given the individual aircraft number 82, arriving in April 1939. Issued to 1ére Escadrille, Groupe de Combat 11/5 Lafayette at Reims, where she carried the command stripes on the fuselage of the personal aircraft of Commandant Murtin, CO of both GC 1/5 and GC 11/5. She moved to Toul during the Battle of France, and then on to Oran in Algeria before the Armistice. From 1940 to 1942 Hawk No.82’s Squadron, now part of Vichy French Forces, was engaged in sporadic skirmishes with Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Navy (USN) aircraft over Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. Between 1946 and 1949 Hawk No.82 was with the 4th Training Squadron at Cazaux in Western France serving as an advanced trainer with 22 other H-75s.
Hawk No.82 was saved from scrapping in the 1950’s and was placed in storage in France until acquired by The Fighter Collection in 1995. Following a major overhaul in the United States she made her British debut in 2005.
It wears an authentic Armée de l’Air standard three-tone scheme, with her GC 11/5 markings on her port, and the Lafeyette Escadrille Sioux Indian head motif (The Fighter Collection logo) on her starboard side.
The Fighter Collection’s Hawk is a very rare aircraft, along with their P-36 they are the only versions of this aircraft currently airworthy anywhere in the world.
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