With just over 650 units produced - all variants combined - the Northrop P-61 can hardly be considered one of the most common or well-known aircraft of the Second World War. As a result, very few units of this night fighter remain today: three are on display in museums (in the USA and China), and a fourth has been under restoration for many years and may one day take to the skies again (in the USA).

In short, the parts from this aircraft are particularly rare, and it is therefore a pleasure to present to you the control wheel from one of these machines — all the more so as this one is in excellent condition. Apart from its central hub bearing the Northrop logo, it retains all its original switches, which are still functional.

This piece has been in the same family for many years, as its owner inherited it from his father, who was a pilot in the French Naval Aviation. He himself received it as a gift during a stopover in 1961 at the Karouba Naval Air Base (Bizerte, Tunisia). The gift came from a friend - a flight mechanic on the SO30P in squadron 31S - who had salvaged it from a wreck located at that time in Indochina.

It is a genuine collector’s item, one of those rare pieces that a collector encounters only once in a lifetime, if ever...