5 Minute Guides to Aircraft: Lockheed P-38 Lightning

the heavy fighter is a unique product of World War II being a plane designed primarily for the interception of heavy bombers utilizing greater Firepower and oftentimes range to give it a distinct Niche over single engine interceptors the common trade-off for heavy Fighters when compared to single engine interceptors was a maneuverability after all who needs to turn when you're shooting at bombers flying in straight lines Lockheed however thought differently the surmised origins of the P-38 begin with a usaac request in 1937 for a twin-engine high altitude Interceptor one Lockheed read this proposal they were intrigued and got to work in an effort to allow as much freedom and flexibility with the design process as possible a secretive engineering team led by Hull Hibbard and Clarence Kelly Johnson was formed to begin working on the proposal this team would later be named Skunk Works early development saw a lot of ideas put forward for the new fighter including a design that used to push-pull configuration The Chosen design however would be a twin boom design with a central Gondola holding the cockpit and Armament with the engines and the booms on each side of the cockpit for Armament the P-38 would use 450 caliber machine guns and early on at least an m437 millimeter cannon the Canon however would be quickly replaced with a 20 millimeter Hispano as it was found that the M4 was too unreliable and its ammunition capacity of just 15 shots too small for Skunk Works liking as for the engines the contract dictated that they used the Allison v1710 and its inbuilt single-stage supercharger it was a known flaw at the time that the Allison suffered at altitude so Skunk Works introduced turbocharges for each engine to counter this problem these engines also used counter rotating propellers to eliminate engine torque and allow for incredibly smooth flight the P-38 and Lockheed by extension would win the contract on June 23rd of 1937 by Merit of the plane's potential alone as a long series of tests and production troubles would delay the p-38's first flight until January 27th of 1939 and then introduction to service being July of 1941. unlike most of its contemporary Pursuit fighter Brethren the p-38's first combat debut would be with the Australians in the Pacific while it would serve in Europe and later the Mediterranean as an escort fighter and later bomber Pathfinder its main theater of operations was the Pacific where its long range was put to full display on its very first Japanese Kill in August of 1942 p-38s from The 343rd Fighter Group shot down a pair of 86k flying boats after a 1 000 mile Patrol over the vast deep blue of the Pacific unlike many contemporary heavy Fighters such as the me-110 the pe3 or even the mosquito the P-38 would surprise many axis Pilots with its maneuverability able to generally keep up and in some circumstances outmaneuver lighter single engine Fighters at altitude in fact there was no single major fault to the P-38 that limited its Effectiveness such as in the case of the P-47 sluggishness or the p40s lack of high altitude performance it was respectfully maneuverable had great range in speed and was forgiving for green Pilots thanks to its inherent stability twin engine setup and tricycle landing gear but while there was no major problem there was still in fact a problem the P-38 faced and that was commanders trying to learn how to use it effectively with many early losses in the Mediterranean caused by tactical limitations when these limitations were relaxed or in some cases entirely removed the P-38 thrived from much of 1942 to early 1943. past early 1943 however German Pilots began to wise up to the p-38's one fault that had Skunk Works scratching their head since 1941. the compression of its control surfaces and high-speed dies this Vault had early on been seen as Troublesome but not majorly so as the plane was one of the fastest fighters in existence when it was first released but as newer Fighters and Technologies became available other planes notably bf-109s and with 190s began to outdive p-38s by a considerable margin this high-speed dive issue however was problematic more so in Europe rather than the Pacific as the Japanese seemingly never picked up on the fault or never exploited it fully leading many Pilots to score high kill counts in the Pacific including such names as Richard bong the highest growing American ace of World War II with 40 kills in fact the P-38 had some of the most famous people to fly at full stop with Charles Lindbergh the same one who flew across the Atlantic solo flying one in the Pacific and even scoring a kill Robin olds of operation bowl of Fame flew one as did Antoine Saint xbury he was the author of the story The Little Prince and of course my great grandfather David F Tumi also flew one aside from having some of the most famous pilots of the second world war it also scored the most Wanted Admiral on America's Hit List izuruku Yamamoto being the aircraft responsible for shooting his transport plane down in April of 1943. after World War II the P-38 was quickly retired and sent to Nations like Italy who were rebuilding their Air Forces after the second world war Honduras would be the last operator retiring them in 1965. ten thousand p-38s would be built over its four-year production span with 26 surviving today 10 of which are still error worthy it would appear in a few movies though its most notable influence on pop culture would be its inspiration of the tail fins on the 1948 Cadillacs and general design of the 1950s Studebakers it would also be used in the popular arcade game 1942 by Capcom as the player's aircraft for skunk work's very first plane it set a benchmark of Excellence that Glock keyed continues to uphold to this day something you can see in the P-38 successor the F-35 lightning II foreign

Channel: The Aerodrome

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Id: VEO8Yeq82JQ

Length: 5min 59sec (359 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 03 2023