P-40N 44-7192 was one of ninety P-40s purchased in February 1946 by Paul Mantz and his partners as part of a group of 475 surplus aircraft located at Stillwater, Oklahoma. In fact, this P-40N was never operated by Mantz or Tallman, never appeared in a movie, and was never displayed by Mantz, Tallman, or Tallmantz. However, it was owned by these companies and they were the good stewards that saw the airplane survive to this day.
P-40N 44-7192 was accepted by the AAF for service from the Buffalo factory on April 17, 1944. It was back at Buffalo the following month at a modification center, and then was assigned to the 335th Bomb Group (Medium) at Barksdale Field at Shreveport, Louisiana, at B-26 training unit, for unspecified reasons. It was subsequently assigned to the 331st Base Unit as an operational training unit. It may have been used for gunnery training but that remains conjecture.
In March 1945, it was reassigned to Alexandria Army Air Field at Alexandria, Louisiana, to the 329th Base Unit, also presumably for use in training. In July 1945 it was deemed excess to needs and sent to the RFC field at Stillwater, Oklahoma, for disposal.
Paul Mantz and his partners purchased 44-7192 and 474 other surplus warplanes in February 1946. 44-7192 was one of only a few aircraft, well less than two dozen, that Mantz set aside for his fleet of war surplus aircraft for post-war film work. Two other P-40Ns, 44-7203 and 44-7983, also were retained by Mantz, plus one B-17F, an A-20G, two P-51Cs, and one B-25H, among a few others. The unlucky great majority of the other surplus aircraft were disassembled at Stillwater and shipped out by railcar to be smelted for aluminum content. 44-7192, on the other hand, made it to the west coast. It has not been recorded how it got there, but one suspects it was flown. By 1953, it was located on the Hughes Airport in Culver City, California, most likely in storage and possibly with other Mantz aircraft.
In March 1953, Mantz agreed to loan 44-7192 to the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks for display at Travel Town, a part of the larger Griffith Park in Los Angeles. It was moved intact overland by truck in mid-April from the Hughes Airport to Griffith Park, and it was placed on display. Photos indicate it was initially displayed in its last AAF scheme with its Army serial painted on the lower surface of the wing.
(Photo via Chris Brame on WIX and credited to USC Photo Archive)
Later, it was refinished in an inevitable Flying Tigers scheme.
The airplane remained quietly on display at Griffith Park until August 1965 when it was placed “on loan” by the City of Los Angeles to the San Diego Aero-Space Museum. Apparently, at that point, it was assumed that the City of Los Angeles owned the airplane. It was moved, evidently intact again, from Griffith Park and placed on display at the San Diego facility. It was not until December 1967 that Tallmantz Aviation, specifically company vice president Martha Marchak, sent a “by the way, we own that airplane” letter to the San Diego Aero-Space Museum and to the City of Los Angeles. There was no subsequent dispute; all parties acknowledged that Paul Mantz Air Services had lent the airplane to Los Angeles and its succeeding company, Tallmantz Aviation, now owned the airplane. A loan agreement was signed between Tallmantz Aviation and the San Diego Aero-Space Museum and the P-40N remained on display at San Diego.
In February 1972, Frank Tallman decided to sell the P-40 and there was a flurry of paperwork to prove to the FAA that Tallmantz was the legal owner of the aircraft. The FAA accepted that paperwork and assigned the civil registration of N10626 to 44-7192. The recorded serial number for this aircraft in the FAA files and, indeed, through its paperwork history (except by the original War Assets document), has been “Aircraft Serial Number 4192,” presumably an abbreviation of its military serial number possibly painted on the aircraft that way at some location. The FAA assigned the civil registration to Tallmantz on March 27, 1972. (Though attributed, there is nothing in the FAA registration file that suggests it was ever assigned a civil registration of N4161K; it remains unknown how that got associated with this airframe.)
Curiously, there is a magazine illustration where the caption states the photo (below) was shot at Tallmantz Aviation at Orange County, though it was was clearly shot at Ed Maloney’s The Air Museum possibly in the late 1960s. The information attached to the photo identifies the P-40N as 44-7192 and says it was part of the Tallmantz collection when taken. That identification is most likely incorrect as 44-7192 was displayed at Travel Town in Los Angeles in 1965, then was moved to the San Diego Aerospace Museum until 1972 when Tallmantz sold it to an Oklahoma buyer. 44-7192 also has no known association with The Air Museum collection. There is the slim possibility the airplane was displayed with The Air Museum collection between 1972 and 1977, when the airplane appeared at the Carlsbad airport, but it seems unlikely. The photo is included here for clarification about the possibly misidentified airframe. It would be helpful if anyone had a photo of the airplane as it was displayed at the San Diego Aerospace Museum.
From the archives of the San Diego Aerospace Museum is this image from the Charles M. Daniels Collection. Information attached to the photo states it shows P-40N 44-7192 (N4161K) as part of the Tallmantz Collection which, based on all available information, is most likely incorrect. The above photo was taken at Ontario at The Air Museum facility, probably in the late 1960s, though the date of the photo is not indicated. There was no association between 44-7192 and The Air Museum at Ontario, and 44-7192 was displayed between 1965 and 1972 at the San Diego Aerospace Museum. The location of the airplane between 1972 and 1977 is not known, so there remains a slim possibility it was displayed at Ontario in the interim. (Charles M. Daniels Collection via SDAM)
It is thought that the airplane remained on display at San Diego through the registration and sale process. On April 18, 1972, it was sold to Windward Aviation of Enid, Oklahoma. Windward Aviation is associated with Doug Champlin and the later Champlin Fighter Museum at Mesa, Arizona. Windward Aviation was the legal owner of the aircraft displayed at that museum. Though the airplane was purchased in April 1972, it does not appear much, if any, work was done on the airframe until it was placed with Dick Martin’s shop at the Carlsbad Airport near Oceanside, California. Martin was a noted warbird restorer and his shop went to work on the P-40N in the mid-1970s. Initial application for an Experimental airworthiness certificate was made in November 1977. Total airframe time was recorded by Martin as 100.0 hours at that point. A year later it was issued a Limited airworthiness certificate with 106.0 hours recorded at that point, so the airplane flew six hours in that year. That was the last airworthiness certificate issued for the airframe in the FAA record.
(March 1978 at Carlsbad, CA; photo by Scott Thompson)
The P-40N was displayed at the Champlin Fighter Museum at Mesa for several decades.
(Photo via Aerial Visuals)
In 2003, 44-7192 and the rest of the Champlin Fighter Museum collection was placed on loan with the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle. It remains legally owned by Windward Aviation but is on static display in one of the museum galleries.
(Museum of Flight Photo)