THIS is warehouse living like you’ve not see before.
Graham and Robyn Smith have a hideaway in a Curtiss P-40 (Kittyhawk) factory near Port Adelaide’s Dock One.

That’s the World War Two warplane.

Piled about the place, high up towards the soaring roof and in nooks and crannies, there are also bits and pieces of Australian-built Wirraways and Boomerangs. On the Smiths’ lounge room wall there’s a Kittyhawk aileron and an elevator, scavenged from Mildura’s wartime training base.

Down on the factory floor there’s also a WWII-vintage Willy’s Jeep - Robyn’s.

Despite all this, the thing that hits you hardest in the mind’s-eye, as you squeeze into the place from a nondescript side-street, is the mass of massive, heavy-duty metal presses, cutters and forges.

For this really is a Kittyhawk factory.

“Originally I started looking to track down all the Wirraway parts,” Graham said. “I knew where the drawings were, but I couldn’t get access to the drawings. All the CAC (Commonwealth Aircraft Company) drawings, over the years, have been piled up in boxes and put in a room.

“There’s a person who goes down four hours a fortnight and puts them on microfiche. If you’ve got a couple of thousand drawings, it’s going to take you a long time.

“Who knows. Most of these projects are done by older people. He may have dropped off the perch.“

“Anyway, I was able to get hold of the P-40 drawings.

“I guess, if you were looking at it from a commercial point of view, the P-40 is quite a valuable aircraft at the end of the exercise, and you have to go through the same exercise to build a P-40 as you would have to to restore a Wirraway. The Wirraway might be valued at something like $300,000 at the end of the exercise - (and) it might cost you $250,000 to $300,000 to build. A P-40 is also very expensive (to build), but might be worth a lot more at the end of it.”

He’s building two. So he could use some help.

For any WWII aircraft buff, the Kittyhawk is an interesting machine. Of monocoque (all-metal) construction, it was a cutting edge weapon when the war broke out. The then-neutral United States shipped scores to Britain under the lend-lease agreement (a toe-in-the-water arrangement that made a lot of Americans wealthy without committing US forces to the fight against Germany). In British tests, the fighter (pursuit plane, in American terminology - hence the P-40 designation) compared well with the Supermarine Spitfire … until they reached higher altitudes.

There, the Rolls Royce Merline engine, with its two-stage supercharger, gave the Spitfire a huge advantage over the Tomahawk (as the Brits called the P-40) and its single-stage Allison engine.

Also, the Tomahawk was under-gunned.
It had just the two heavy machine guns firing through its propeller, whereas the Spitfire had eight in its wings.

So, the Tomahawk played little part in the ferocious air battles over Europe.

They were sent to Africa and the Indian sub-continent. Some ended up in China, flown against Japanese planes by volunteer American pilots - the Flying Tigers.

The Americans countered the greater agility of the Zero by diving out of the sun and through the escorting Japanese fighters to get to the lumbering bomber formations, then using their momentum to zoom away before they could get into trouble.

A six-gun version, which the Royal Australian Air Force called the Kittyhawk, saw long and valuable service in the Pacific theatre.

The Australians used the Flying Tiger technique.

Graham has a family connection to aircraft engineering - his father, Eddie, headed a team of draughtsmen who designed tooling equipment to make Wirraway, Boomerang and P-51 Mustang parts during the war.

Eddie and his team stand out on the lounge room wall at Port Adelaide.

First off the production line downstairs will be the restoration of a P-40 called Grace - A29 153. There’s a picture of Grace on the wall, too.

She fought in New Guinea.

Graham obtained parts of the old girl from a collector in Victoria - pieces of the fuselage.

He is negotiating for parts of the second plane.

Getting to Port Adelaide is a story in itself. Briefly, the Smiths bought a building down the street in 1985. There they developed and operated a laser game system - Vultrek 5. Later the game was franchised.
Vultrek 5 was played at Port Adelaide for 10 years.

Now the Vultrek building hosts paintball battles - same principals, same principles, messier weapons.

The Smiths also had an engineering business. That was at Wingfield. When the old flour mill that ultimately became the aircraft factory came up for sale, they moved the engineering business to the Port.

They have a house at Semaphore, but prefer to live among their collections, in what was the mill’s offices.

This is what the Smiths call semi-retirement.

Their CAD (computer assisted design) gear is dedicated entirely to aircraft, and they’re adding old, specialist equipment - like the 1942 riveter that just arrived from New South Wales.

Any spare space is taken up by bits of aeroplanes in various stages of repair.

Most complete is a 1938 Slingsby Kirby Cadet glider. It hangs from the rafters - still graceful, despite lacking wings.

The Slingsby used a huge rubber band.

“You’d have a mob of guys this side and a mob of guys that side and they’d run down the hill, trailing the rubber band, and then tsu, tsu, tsu … like a slingshot,” Graham said.

Gliders were his first love, and flying powered planes his second. He got himself a commercial pilot’s licence, but that career offered less than did engineering, designing war games and owning hotels (at one time the Smiths owned the Commercial Hotel at Morgan and, on the road to Broken Hill, the Manna Hill pub).

Graham has designed a kit plane - yet to be named - that he’ll build and sell.

He also makes parts to order.

For the foreseeable future, the Kittyhawk project will occupy most of his time and resources.

Parts are cut out by the CAD gear and shaped by the 1000-tonne press that squats in one corner. What Graham can't make, he trades for.

All in all, it’s a heck of a home.

“When we bought here, there wasn’t anything special about Port Adelaide,” Graham said. “Then, large old buildings were affordable.”

In such a place, dreams can fly.