P- 40 Kittyhawk: Guns Armed!

PRESS RELEASE - Visitors to the Warbirds Over Wanaka International Airshow next Easter will be treated to a display which has never been performed at any other airshow in the world.

Auckland-based pilot Liz Needham will be at the controls of a P-40 Kittyhawk aircraft as she strafes the airfield with six x .50 caliber machine guns. The display was first performed at Warbirds Over Wanaka by Garth Hogan in 2008 followed by Frank Parker. 

Liz Needham, who is married to Frank, then performed the display in 2012. The P-40 aircraft was restored some years earlier by Garth Hogan and Charles Darby and the guns were later fitted by Paul McSweeny and his team from Pioneer Aero.

Paul says all they had to do was fit the guns and connect them electrically and they worked, all of the cockpit detail and plumbing and wiring for them was already fitted. “This just shows the lengths that Garth and Charles had gone to, to have the aircraft restored as close as possible to original specification,” says Paul.

Liz says the act is unique to Wanaka. “There is no other airshow in the world to have a P-40 firing guns. From the pilot’s point of view, firing the guns is a separate display to flying the aircraft. Gunner Ashford briefed me on how to fire the guns and the time to hold the trigger down for each burst. 

He also briefed me on the safety aspects of firing on the ground and in the air. We had a special ‘live firing’ of the guns on the ground for the Gold Pass stand for Sir Tim Wallis in 2012 which went down a treat,” says Liz.

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