The expected arrival of Tony Banta's P-40E N940AK back in Geneseo will be greeted with many mixed emotions. Appearing in its new olive drab overall livery of the USAAC's 23rd Fighter Squadron complete with a shark-toothed mouth and red spinner, it is very different in appearance to from what many older Geneseo Airshow attendees would remember.

This P-40 was originally flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II and may be the only one in existence with combat time in the Aleutian Islands. It was registered as AK 940 and wore RCAF number 1058. After the war it served as a display over a gas station in Red Deer, Alberta before being purchased by Bob Warden in 1968. Bob planned to have it join his other P-40 ( RCAF number 1052 ) at Edmonton's Industrial Airport but decided he didn't need two, so he sold it to Dave Harrington of Air Spray. From there it went to a collector in Carmen, Manitoba in November, 1969 before being purchased by Dr. Bill Anderson of Geneseo, New York three months later.

During that time the fuselage was restored in Colorado while the wings were rebuilt in Texas by the eccentric aviator Duane Egli. The aircraft was returned to Bill during the late 1970s. In 1980, he and Austin Wadsworth held the first Geneseo Airshow, later founding and becoming respectively the vice president and president of the National Warplane Museum and still later, the 1941 Historical Aircraft Group.

Bill Anderson's P-40, originally painted in USAAC olive drab with neutral gray undersides and sporting a large white star on blue background and red center, was the mainstay of the earlier Geneseo Airshows. It was later painted in brown and green camouflage with Chinese insignias and in the AVG paint scheme of pilot R.T. Smith of the Hells Angels Squadron. Bill Anderson flew this plane until May, 1995 when his Allison V-1710 engine failed and he force-landed it in an upstate New York farmer’s recently furrowed field.

Pilot Dick Thurman purchased the P-40 in 1997 and shipped the wings and fuselage for restoration to Stallion 51 in Florida and Square One in Chino, California. After Dick purchased another P-40K he sold the P-40E to Tony Banta of Livermore California. Tony had the aircraft completely restored at Pioneer Avspecs at Ardmore Airfield, south of Auckland New Zealand. It was returned to Tony who made its new US debut in 2002.

By Frank Schaufler and Seth Goltzer