The Curtiss P-40 was a US-made single-seat single-engine monoplane that in the first half of the 1940s was used by the allies as a fighter jet or fighter-bomber in many of the theaters where World War II was fought. Produced by the Curtiss Airplane and Motor Company of Buffalo (New York), as a linear motor version of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk, it was never an exceptional aircraft [6] (mainly due to the engine, not very powerful at high altitude [7 ]); however it was equally built in a large number of specimens, and the remarkable robustness (combined with the wide availability since the first months after the entry into the war of the USA) made it one of the most important fighters for the American aviation between 1941 and the summer of 1943 [8]. The versions supplied to the United States military (USAAC and, later, USAAF) were known as Hawk 81 (up to P-40E) or Warhawk (from P-40F onwards [9]), while those delivered to Commonwealth countries under the Lend-Lease agreements ("rents and loans") they were known as Tomahawk (equivalent to versions P-40A, B and C) or Kittyhawk (equivalent to versions P-40D and later)