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Originally Posted by Alex Smart
Great Photos and grand to see the data plate.
Question - Were they built in sequence or not ?
Might a/c number 82 be 12881 and not 12879 ?
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Hello Alex,
Well nice point... but, the first fact is that Kari Stenman provided the list of each engine that was on each French Curtiss delivered to Finland :
1) CU-568 c/n 12879 had the Pratt & Whitney SCG c/n 1623 when it was delivered to Finland on 2nd Aug, 1941.
The French H-75A-1 N°82 was shipped from the USA without engine and received, during assembly at Bourges factory, the Pratt & Whitney SCG c/n 1623. It was delivered on 25th Apr, 1939. The Curtiss Factory Billing Ledger shows that c/n 12879 has left the Factory on 21st Mar, 1939 and had the French s/n N°82.
2) Both motor list match for almost every A-1, A-2, A-3 and A-4 excepted for one or two who were re-engined between assembly and the delivery to the Finnish Air Force. Consequently, there is absolutly zero doubt, now, that the identification of the Finno-French H-75s' is right.
3) This point was not clear at the time S. Grey restaured his aircraft, so let him the benefit of the doubt. However, Lionel Persyn knew that before by investigating each a/c case and he had no doubt it matched ; S. Grey had two marks stamped inside the airframe on parts not removable from it that are clearly a Nr.82. Those stamps were applied in production and the aircraft were not serialized for the French once they had left the factory but early during the building process. All the serie was built and accepted in straight order, same for the shipment beside aircraft retained for testing like both N°1s. The marking was made with the number provided by the client instead of factory c/ns. This s/n was the reference number for every document we saw.
4) both Nr.82's airframe differed by mostly nothing excepted the firewall, the engine mounting and wings. It was studied in 1944 how to adapt a P&W engine on a A-4 airframe as no stock of this later Wright engine was still available because it used to break after a very short time. When Lionel found the accident report for this N°82 in Cazaux (close to the wreckage recovery), it was demonstrated that it was one of the last A-4 delivered in 1945 on which was mounted a P&W in Alger-Maison-Blanche AIA N°3 (Air force industrial workshop Nr.3). This is clearly writed on this document with all the subsequent hours of flight.
5) order of production / delivery :
12875 No.78 16-Mar-39 France H-75A-1 X8-77
12876 No.79 17-Mar-39 France H-75A-1 X8-78
12877 No.80 17-Mar-39 France H-75A-1 X8-79
12878 No.81 20-Mar-39 France H-75A-1 X8-80
12879 No.82 21-Mar-39 France H-75A-1 X8-81
12880 No.83 21-Mar-39 France H-75A-1 X8-82
12881 No.84 22-Mar-39 France H-75A-1 X8-83
(Many thanks Buz for typing the complete list from the Ledger)
6) Factory plates.
Thanks to *CJE* who will publish soon an article in
Dogfight about the H-75s, here is how should look the N°82 plate which was only 52 aircraft behind this one below; you can read the numbers in negative and notice that the date is in US format (5 7 40); S/N is N°30 and C/N is 13835; the following pict is the one from the cockpit used to get the plate. (You may notice as well that the plate of the restaured N°82 is wrong about the production date : April, 1939 for the A-1 instead of 21-Mar, 1939)
13835 No.30 7-May-40 France H-75A4 (plate)
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13887 No.82 29-May-40 France H-75A4 (restaured)
(this last pict is showing the new renumbering for the A-4 serie and was published as well in the Docavia Cuny/Beauchamp)
You've got the answer of the remaining questions you asked from Juha.
Regards,
Olivier Bacca / Louis Capdeboscq / Lionel Persyn