Warhawk Inc.'s Fabulous P-40 Restoration - Courtesy Aircraft

Aleutian
TIGER!
TIGER!
Warhawk Inc.’s Fabulous P-40 Restoration
The northern part of the United States has started to gain a reputation as a
hot bed of warbird restoration activity. For many years two small towns in North
Dakota, Kindred and Wahpeton, have been synonmous with quality P-51 Mustang
restorations by Odegaard Aviation and Tri-State Aviation respectively. Now the
small town of Granite Falls, Minnesota, within a stones throw of North Dakota,
can boast of the finest in P-40 Warhawk restorations. Ron Fagen’s Warhawks Inc.
has recently completed the first of a series of Curtiss P-40 restorations that are
sure to turn some heads. The folks at Warhawks Inc. were kind enough to allow
Warbird Digest to visit and see their impressive new operation while Greg Morehead
photographed their stunning first project.
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WARBIRD DIGEST #10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006
5Three generations of aviation enthusiasts. Ron Fagen with his
father Ray Fagen and grandson Ethan Fagen.
3The team responsible for the restoration. (left) Jason Dunn
Fagen Inc. corporate mechanic, (middle) Erik Hokuf with Sparky
(right) Brandon Deuel, Warhawks Inc. machinist.
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5(top) As evidenced by these recovery photographs, the P-40K
was rather heavily vandalized over the nearly fifty years since
its forced landing. The incredible efforts necessary to return the
Warhawk to the air are clear.
5(middle) The completed fuselage and wing section are mated
together on the ramp at Granite Falls.
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Ron Fagen didn’t set out to own an operation specializing
in Curtiss fighters; in fact, he had long had his eyes set on
fighters from other manufacturers altogether. “Shortly after I
got married in the mid-seventies, I decided I wanted to own a
Mustang or a Corsair. Well, I gathered up a couple of buddies
of mine and we decided to head for Central America to buy
one. In my naiveté, I planned to fly down there, locate one
,jump in it and fly it home. A couple of us jumped in a Mooney
and headed for El Salvador. We missed the Corsairs by just
a few months, so we headed on over to Guatemala City to
look for P-51s. I found one chained to a tree that Guatemalan
military personnel were running up every once in a while.
Since I was in the construction business, I offered to build the
local commander a hangar in exchange for the airplane, but he
declined since they wanted to keep the airplane as a memorial.
So we returned empty-handed. In retrospect it was probably a
good thing because I would have likely killed myself trying to
fly it home. I wouldn’t have been the first to do so.”
With his hopes of buying a cheap warbird fighter dashed,
Fagen entered into the world of competition aerobatics and
for the next ten years spent his time building his business
and honing his flying skills. In 1985 Fagen stopped his
participation in competition aerobatics, but continued to
fly while he focused on his business. Over the years his
company became the world leader in the development and
construction of ethanol plants. While preoccupied with other
matters, the desire for a warbird was still resident in Fagen.
In the early nineties he decided to visit Stallion 51 for some
Mustang training. “I went down to see Lee Lauderback to fly
the Mustang. I had a lot of Pitts time, but the Mustang was a
different animal. Anyone who thinks they can just jump from
a Pitts into a Mustang without the proper training is asking
for trouble. My time at Stallion 51 reinforced that I would
have had a difficult time had I tried to bring home a fighter
from Central American.”
When Fagen came home from flying ‘Crazy Horse’ in
Florida, he was even more passionate about warbirds and
in particular the P-51. “I came home, and I really wanted
a Mustang, but I couldn’t afford one at the time. Shortly
after I got back, John Sandberg was killed over in Pierre,
South Dakota in his air racer, Tsunami. I was aware of his
Mustang, ‘Platinum Plus’ which had been totally rebuilt, and
I decided to see if the family was going to sell it. After a bit I
called Sharon Sandberg and asked if they were interested in
selling the airplane. They told me they thought they would
like to keep it. Some period of time went by and they called
me back and said they were considering selling it. I went to
Minneapolis and met with Sharon and Sam Torvik and we
worked out a deal. At the time the airplane had a real ‘hot’
racing engine in it and they wanted to keep it, so they offered
to overhaul a brand new Merlin that was still in the shipping
crate. I agreed and returned home to visit with my banker.
He was agreeable to loaning me the money, so I owned a
Mustang. A few months later the engine was done and we
went up to Salt Lake City where the airplane had been sitting
in Gary Levitz’ hangar. We swapped the engine and then Skip

Holm came in to test fly it and deliver it to Granite Falls.
When Skip brought it to Granite Falls he beat up our little
grass strip pretty good and then landed. Torvik convinced
him to take me around the patch for my first flight in my
own Mustang. After they left I went out and flew it. It had
been a bit since I had been to Stallion so I went over the
books pretty well, but it was a dream come true.”
With the long sought after Mustang in the fold, Fagen
thought he was finished buying warbirds for a while. “On
Thanksgiving I was at my dad’s house reading Trade-
A-Plane when I stumbled across an advertisement for a
P-40E for an unbelievable price. Not only was the price
unbelievable, but it was not too far from me in Carmen,
Manitoba. We quickly ate our Thanksgiving meal and my
father and I jumped in my Bonanza and headed up there.
Now, I had never seen a P-40 before, but I just knew this
had to be a good deal. We met Bob Diemert there at his
farm/airport and looked over the P-40. In the advertisement
he claimed it was a P-40E but when we got there he told
us it was a P-40F, because it was a Merlin engine model.
Now remember, I didn’t know much about P-40s, but it sure
looked like it was all there. So I made the deal, for just a
little shy of $300,000. Diemert told me it would take some
time to get all the paperwork sorted out with the Canadian
authorities, and I flew home thinking I had just made the
deal of the century. A couple of days later I was talking to
Gerry Beck and I mentioned this P-40. He stopped me and
said, ‘You didn’t buy that, did you?’ I told him I had, and
(top & bottom) The P-40K in the clean and well-organized hangar
where Hokuf performed the restoration. Warhawks Inc. has now
moved into more spacious and well equipped facilities and this
hangar will become the sheet metal shop for the company.
WARBIRD DIGEST #10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006
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18 WARBIRD DIGEST #10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006
he told me that everyone, including himself, had been up there
looking at this airplane chasing the elusive ‘deal of the century’ P-
40, but that it really wasn’t a true P-40. Now I was getting a little
nervous, so I gathered up as much data on the P-40 as I could and
went up and looked at it again. It had a real P-40 wing. It had been
spliced in a couple of places, but it was the right dimensions and
had the right profile. The fuselage was pretty cobbled up and it
had a T-6 Texan tail. The engine, of course, was supposed to be an
Allison, as it really was an E-model. After looking it over, I began
to feel a little bit better. After all, a considerable amount of the
airplane was real P-40. I had already paid for the airplane, so I was
committed and I was pleased to find that I hadn’t done too badly.
Fagen sent the fuselage to Tom Wilson of Griffin, Georgia,
who at the time was heavily engaged in the rebuild of P-40
airframes. When the fuselage was complete, it was mated back
to the existing wing. The P-40E, actually a RCAF Kittyhawk I,
AK753 N4420K was painted as the mount of ace Ray Calloway
as ‘Shirley III.’ Calloway was a Granite Falls hero having gone
off to the CBI to join Claire Chennault’s Chinese-American
Composite Wing and returned a 6.5 victory ace.
While Fagen was struggling to straighten out the bugs in AK753
several states away in Tipton, Kansas, Ken Hake was quietly
working on another P-40 project. One of two P-40s he acquired
from Russia in 1991, USAAF Serial No. 42-10256 was a Lend
Lease aircraft that made its way to the Soviet Union in November
1942, most likely by flying through Canada, across the Aleutian
Islands, through Siberia to the western front. In September 1943
the pilot, JLt I.I. Mikhajlov became disorientated after combat
with four Messerschmitts of JG 5 and crashed in Murmansk on
the Kola Peninsula, near Scandinavia. Walter Zaag of Switzerland

5(top left) The Curtiss specifications
call for the gun barrels to be sealed with
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
scotch-type tape. Minnesota Mining is now
known as 3M.
5(top middle) The P-40K left the factory with
bomb racks on the outer wing panels which
were designed to carry small anti-personnel
or fragmentation bombs. This is likely the first
restoration to have this detail added.
3The landing gear of the P-40 was cadmium
plated, not painted.
4The interior of the aft fuselage and the radio
racks. The original radios have been obtained,
but had not yet been installed when Warbird
Digest visited. The zinc chromate color is the
original shade per the Berryloid specifications.
The factory drawings call for the flap
bays to be left zinc chromate.
WARBIRD DIGEST #10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006
The highly detailed gun bays of
the P-40. Over 150 individual
components were required for
each bay.
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20 WARBIRD DIGEST #10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006
sold the location of the wreckage to Ken Hake who hired Carl
Scholl of Aero Trader to assist in the recovery. Later another
P-40K, USAAF Serial No. 42-10083, which was lost the same
day in combat with JG5 was recovered.
Hake had originally started out with a Mustang project, but when
these two P-40 projects came available he seized the opportunity.
Once he set out to restore the airplane, he realized that Warhawk
parts were few and far between. He set out to make what he needed
to build the airplane. Since Hake’s background was manufacturing,
he took a different approach to making the parts from the traditional
individual with aviation training. His approach was to research the
manufacturing methods used by Curtiss and then implement those
to build the parts. Therefore, the tooling and process would exist
the next time the part needed to be built. Eventually Hake would
become the best-kept secret of the P-40 restoration movement.
He was capable of providing most of the difficult to find parts as
well as raw material such as extrusions, etc. Relatively unknown
outside of the close-knit P-40 community, he has provided parts
for nearly all of the ongoing restorations.
As the structural work on 42-10256 neared completion, Hake
approached Fagen to see if he was interested in purchasing the
project. A deal was struck and the completed wing and fuselage
were delivered to Granite Falls in July 2004. Fagen is quick to
point out that while Hake has developed the ability to produce
a large number of P-40 parts, 42-10256 is made up of original

Curtiss parts wherever they were available. “We only used newbuild
parts when the originals were no longer obtainable.”
Fagen hired Erik Hokuf to head up the project. Hokuf had been raised
on a farm in northern Minnesota and had developed an incredible
passion for aviation, especially warbirds. He started working on
aircraft at the age of seventeen and when Fagen found him seven
years later he had quite a list of accomplishments, having gained
experience in rebuilding engines, fabrication and fabric covering.
He was working for a corporate operator at the time. According to
Fagen, “My son Evan kept telling me that I needed to talk to this
guy, that he was an incredible craftsman and I should hire him.
Later I found out that he had been trying to get a hold of me for
some time and finally we connected. He ended up being the driving
force behind the quality and authenticity of this project.”
Hokuf jumped in and began to learn everything he could about
the P-40. “We knew we wanted this aircraft to be as authentic
as possible. We went back to the original factory drawings for
many of the details. The Curtiss drawings are sometimes not
that organized, but now I can pretty much locate anything that I
am looking for, I have become so familiar with them.” Hokuf’s
dedication to the project is clear. He spent over forty hours on
a weekend just learning to hand lace the control cable ends per
the original. There are a number of places in the airframe where
swaged cables will not fit due to pulley clearances, etc. Since the
art of hand lacing is nearly lost, many previous P-40 restorations
WARBIRD DIGEST #10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006
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made use of the original cable ends which were spliced to
new cables beyond the area of the clearance problem. With
the goal of factory original in mind, Hokuf set out and
accomplished this difficult task.
Hokuf believes that this P-40 will challenge a lot of people’s
conceptions of what a P-40 should look like. “We spent a lot
of time researching the interior zinc chromate color. Curtiss
used Berryloid paint which had aluminum bronze mixed
into it. It gives it a different shade than what most people
are used to, but it is original. I recently found a Berryloid
paint handbook from 1944 which verified what I had learned
through other sources. Additionally, a lot of people who
haven’t done the research are going to look at this airplane
and say that we have used Phillips head screws which are
not accurate for the time period. That isn’t so. These are
Reed and Prince screws and the Curtiss products are riddled
with them. I am sure we will get questions on such things
as the unpainted cadmium plated gear legs, but that is the
way they left the factory. The wheels were painted with hitemp
paint, and we duplicated that as well. It doesn’t have
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the same great finish of a modern polyurethane paint, but it is
the way it left the factory. We had the advantage of having 42-
10083 sitting in our shop while finishing out this airplane. It was
a fairly intact airframe and had a lot of the interior items intact.
It provided verification that the factory drawings were correct.”
The level of detail that has gone into this P-40K restoration is
nothing short of incredible. The gun bays contain actual .50 caliber
Browning machines guns. According to Hokuf over 150 individual
parts were necessary to mount the three guns in each bay. Many
of these are original Curtiss parts, but others had to be duplicated
from drawings or patterns. He estimates that over two weeks were
spent just machining these various items. The electrical circuits
were also completely reinstalled and when you pull the trigger in
the cockpit, the solenoids on the guns cycle. The original radio
equipment has also been located and restored.
The P-40K has been finished in the markings of the 11th Fighter
Group, 343rd Fighter Group based in the Aleutian Islands. Colonel
John “Jack” Chennault, the son of General Claire Chennault of
American Volunteer Group fame, was the original commander

of the unit. The P-40s were painted in
a variation of the theme made famous
in the CBI by the AVG.
As the P-40K project neared
completion, Fagen was approached
by Hake about purchasing his
P-40 business. Over the years he
had amassed an incredible amount
of original P-40 parts and four
additional P-40 projects. This was in
addition to the vast array of jigs and
tooling suitable for the construction
of additional P-40 parts. Seeing
an opportunity to build a number
of high quality Warhawks, Fagen
formed Warhawks, Inc. A new
hangar was built at Granite Falls
to house his corporate aircraft, and
facilities were created to house
the new business. At the time of
WARBIRD DIGEST #10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006
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Warbird Digest’s visit, the trucks were literally
being loaded in Kansas to move the operation.
Hokuf, who will head the restoration efforts of the
new company, comments on their philosophy of
restoration. “Our approach is going to be to build
the most authentic P-40s possible. We intend to
finish them to our standards and then offer them for
sale. I have observed so many restoration companies
who do projects for customers who want a myriad of
changes from the original specifications that effect
the restoration company’s reputation. After all, you
can only work to the level the customer is willing to
fund. We want to control the process so we will build
the airplanes on spec and then sell them when we are
finished. We also intend to introduce the ‘production
line’ mentality into our restoration efforts. By working
on the same part for multiple projects at the same time
we can reduce the spool-up time and be considerably
more efficient.” This approach to restoration will
certainly provide for a top quality end result.
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WARBIRD DIGEST #10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006
Both Fagen and Hokuf have high praise for Ken
Hake. As an example, Hokuf pointed out the chin
radiator scoop of the P-40. “Most guys look at
all the compound metal work in the scoop and
are intimidated. Hake just looks at it as a big
manufacturing job, builds the right tooling and
turns out an incredible piece. Nothing seems to be
beyond his abilities.”
Next up for Warhawks Inc. is the rebuild of
AK753. The newly rebuilt wing has already
arrived from Hake’s shop and as soon as the
final details are complete on the K-model,
work will begin. Also in the wings is Lockheed
P-38L USAAF Serial No. 44-27231 which will
also undergo a complete restoration in the near
future. The P-38 has a special place in Fagen’s
heart. “My father was in the 4th Infantry
Division in France shortly after D-Day. His
unit got pinned down and nearly wiped out to
the point where there were only two or three of
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26 WARBIRD DIGEST #10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006
them left. A group of P-38s came along and beat back the
Germans. They saved his life.”
Warhawks Inc. will continue to produce parts for other P-40
projects while working on their own. Warbird enthusiasts
worldwide can be secure in the knowledge that with
individuals like Ron Fagen with the financial wherewithal
to support these projects and dedicated young men like Erik
Hokuf to perform the work, the sound of the P-40 overhead
will be heard for many years to come.