Jerry Yagen's Hawk 75 at Avspecs

[ZacYates]

Hi all,
For many years I've followed Mike Nicholls' restoration of the ex-French (undelivered), ex-Norweigian, ex-German and ex-Finnish Curtiss Hawk 75 CU-554 since its import to Omaka:
Hawk 75A import to Omaka Classic Wings issue 45 by Zac Yates, on Flickr

Recently it changed hands and was moved to Avspecs for new owner Jerry Yagen. When I visited Ardmore recently I was fortunate to have a few minutes to take some photos of this very exciting project which I hope you'll enjoy.

Untitled by Zac Yates, on Flickr
Untitled by Zac Yates, on Flickr
Untitled by Zac Yates, on Flickr
Untitled by Zac Yates, on Flickr

Untitled by Zac Yates, on Flickr
The original horizontal stabiliser, which my Avspecs guide said had been restored for museum display possibly in Russia...complete with pop rivets!

Untitled by Zac Yates, on Flickr
Untitled by Zac Yates, on Flickr
The recently-arrived engine for the project.

I'm as excited to see this project progress and take to the skies over Ardmore as I was when I first read about it way back when. Bravo Mike for all your hard work and research, and all the best to the Avspecs team.

[agalbraith]

Nice one Zac, thanks for the update buddy!

[patmurphy]

Great to see progress on this Zac. It was being worked on when I visited early last year and Andy and Warren, generously gave me some time to look over the airframe and some of it's history. Utterly fascinating. The Fighter Collection's Hawk 75 is a favourite of mine, it looks a bit more "industrial" to me, than the later P40's and it's a cracking sound. Look forward to more on this after TB252 gets finished (that was in the hangar in 2012 on my first trip to NZ) Seen your shots of that on UKAR, very nice.

Pat