Paul Bennet, principal display pilot of Paul Bennet Airshows, flew an ex-Royal Australian Air Force Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk at Wings Over Shellharbour on 17 May 2026, held at Shellharbour Airport (YSHL) in the Illawarra region of New South Wales. The appearance marked another public flight of one of the most historically significant warbird types in Australian aviation heritage, representing the RAAF's front-line fighter capability across multiple theaters during World War II, including the Pacific and the Western Desert campaigns. The P-40 Kittyhawk, powered by an Allison or Packard-built Merlin engine depending on the variant, presents substantial handling challenges that make its continued airshow presence a demonstration of considerable operator skill and maintenance investment.
The P-40's operational history with the RAAF gives it particular resonance on Australian airshow circuits. Australia received several hundred Kittyhawks under Allied supply arrangements, and the type served with multiple RAAF squadrons in combat operations against Japanese forces in New Guinea and the surrounding island campaigns. Surviving airworthy examples are rare globally, and those maintained to display standards represent decades of dedicated restoration work and ongoing engineering effort. Keeping a liquid-cooled, high-performance piston fighter airworthy to the standard required for aerobatic display flying imposes significant recurring costs and demands a pool of specialist maintenance personnel with deep knowledge of period engine and airframe systems.
For professional pilots and aviation operators, warbird airshows like Wings Over Shellharbour represent a specialized segment of aviation activity that intersects with several areas of regulatory and operational interest. Display flying in high-performance historic aircraft requires specific authorizations under Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) regulations, and airshow organizers must coordinate temporary restricted airspace, ground safety buffers, emergency response planning, and Notice to Air Missions (NOTAMs) affecting local traffic at YSHL and nearby controlled and uncontrolled aerodromes. Shellharbour Airport itself serves general aviation traffic in the Wollongong area, and integrating a high-tempo warbird display program into an active aerodrome environment requires careful operational coordination between display organizers, CASA, and Airservices Australia.
The broader trend of warbird preservation and public display flying in Australia reflects sustained community and institutional interest in maintaining flyable examples of historically significant military aircraft. Organizations and individual operators such as Paul Bennet Airshows occupy a niche that bridges entertainment, heritage preservation, and specialist aviation operations, drawing significant public attendance and media attention to regional airports that would otherwise receive limited general public visibility. For pilots and operators attending or operating near such events, familiarity with airshow NOTAMs, temporary flight restriction geometry, and display line protocols remains an important element of situational awareness, particularly at smaller regional aerodromes where normal traffic patterns may be substantially altered during multi-day event programs.