The AVG copied the shark mouth from the RAAF from the early Burhma campaign. Chenault said he'd neer seen a paint scheme lend itself so well to a specific aircraft(P40). The RAAF had P40's and Spitfires, so I guess you could call it a spitfire face, but really, every one associates that scheme with the Warhawk/Tomahawk/Kittyhawk. I've seen some pics of later in the war, once the Army had absorbed the AVG, they had the shark mouth on P-51's, P-39's, B-25's and even B-24s. Every one wanted to be known as a "tiger". I Another interesting fact is Disney Studios actually was hired to come up with the "Flying Tiger" emblem
|