Museum Recreating Iconic WWII Fighter From ’40s Air Wrecks

HAMMONDSPORT, N.Y. (AP) — Volunteers at a New York aviation museum are using the salvaged hulks of three different airplanes to recreate an iconic World War II fighter that was produced at an upstate factory.

Ben Johnson, executive director at the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport in the Finger Lakes region, says the project will recreate a 1940s P-40 Warhawk, a mainstay of Allied air fleets during the war.

Johnson tells the Elmira Star-Gazette (http://stargaz.tt/2n5SzdT ) that the plane is being made from parts taken from three P-40s that crashed into swamps in the South. He says the public is invited to view the work in progress at the museum.

Nearly 14,000 P-40s were manufactured at the Buffalo company founded by Curtiss, an aviation pioneer who was born in Hammondsport. The P-40 became one of WWII's most recognizable fighters.

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Information from: Star-Gazette, http://www.stargazette.com