Soon after receiving an order from the USAAC for an evaluation quantity of its Model 75 fighter, Curtiss began to consider the export potential of the basic design as a successor to the Hawk III biplane. A simplified version with a fixed cantilever undercarriage was evolved for which the export appellation "Hawk" was retained and to which the model number "75" was appended. Two demonstration examples of the Hawk 75 were built in parallel with the three Y1P-36s ordered by the USAAC, these being powered by the 875hp Wright Cyclone GR-1820-G3 Cyclone nine-cylinder radial. One mounted an armament of one 12.7mm and one 7.62mm gun in the nose, and the other having this armament supplemented with a pair of wing-mounted 7.62mm weapons. The two demonstration aircraft were assigned the designation Hawk 75-H (Curtiss having adopted the practice of allocating suffix letters to each version of the basic design, the Y1P-36, for example, being the 75-E, the XP-37 being the 75-1, etc), the two-gun example being lost and the four-gun aircraft being sold to China. The latter country was the first quantity purchaser of the fixed undercarriage Hawk 75, a total of 30 being delivered under the designation Hawk 75-M between May and August 1938. A further 82 were to have been assembled by CAMCO (Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company) at Loi-wing, but these were cancelled in favour of assembly of the more advanced Hawk 75A-5. The delivery followed from November 1938 of 29 aircraft to Argentina under the designation Hawk 75-0, these having an armament of four 7.62mm guns, and a further 20 examples were licence-built by the FMA. Delivered simultaneously to Thailand were 12 Hawk 75-Ns, these having two fuselage-mounted 7.62mm guns and two underwing 23mm Madsen cannon. The characteristics of all versions of the fixed-undercarriage Hawk 75 were essentially similar.

3-View

A three-view drawing (1280 x 972)