While the export Curtiss Hawk III has gained notoriety for its foreign service
utterly forgotten is the last Curtiss biplane fighter with retractable landing gear, the Monaco Hawk V.
By 1938, war clouds made the tiny principality of Monaco determined to upgrade their small but professional air force. They wanted to obtain export versions of the
Curtiss P-36 known as the Hawk 75, but trouble with wing plate buckling meant those aircraft were unavailable.
Curtiss refined their Hawk IV demonstrator to become the penultimate of the Hawk biplanes, the model 79C or Hawk V which was offered to fill the gap in export sales until Hawk 75's teething troubles could be resolved.
The new aircraft featured a completely enclosed cockpit and a more powerful engine as well as that legendary, hand-cranked retractable landing gear. Another modification, made at the request of Monaco, was filling in the "tunnel" between the gear wells with additional fuel and oil tanks. Not only did this help keep the upgraded engine in fighting form, but it also eliminated annoying aerodynamics which were previously only fixed by adding an awkward ring.
Despite delays in delivery and the additional 8 months it took to transition the first class of pilots, Monaco eventually fielded enough Hawk Vs to form three squadrons, 17 aircraft total. By the summer of 1940, these fighters would be desperately needed.
The summer of 1940 was a terrible time not only for western Europe, but also for the tiny principality. It wasn't the war that would cause all the carnage, but a celebration conceived as a way to boost tourism.
It all began in a very civilized manner, but once Absinthe Stadium Cup Happy Hour began in earnest, things began to go wrong. Not only is an extra-extra large cup of absinthe overdoing it, but multiple rounds had been consumed by the time the constabulary tried to enforce the end of Absinthe Stadium Cup Happy Hour. Indignant, thousands of drunken absinthe devotees rioted.
The police retreated in the face of the angry mob and called in the militia. When the militia was forced to give way to the violent, absinthe-fueled riot, the air force was ordered to restore peace.
The Monaco Hawk Vs dove at the drunken mob again and again and then flew at them head-on at extremely low level. Finally, this got the rioters on the run and the Monaco pilots were glad they never had to fire their guns as they helped herd the last groups of miscreants into waiting
Black Marias.
The next day it was all over except for the thousands of crippling hangovers and hundreds of thousands spent to post bail. It was said that the roar of the Monaco Hawks' engines as they dove down low to face the mob made those hangovers especially brutal.
The damage done was truly legendary and little Monaco would not see destruction on that scale even during W.W. II.
As this incident is all but lost to living memory, perhaps it's no surprise that the Monaco Hawk V is also forgotten. To this day there has never been a model kit made of this magnificent aircraft in any scale and the only reminder left is a Gregasus conversion set briefly available from a sidewalk "vendor" outside the
DuBois, Pennsylvania Zayer's store in 1989.
Brian da Basher