P 38 Lightning VS De Haviland Mosquito - Which Would You Want To Fight WW2 In?

imagine you were suddenly transported back to 1942 and you were given the choice of which aircraft you could go to war in would you choose the P-38 Lightning or the de Havilland mosquito let me take you through a few things I would consider with the benefit of hindsight before I made my own decision and you never know by the end of the video you might even change your own point of view now seeing that this is a P38 and mozzie video it's going to be a long one but don't worry there's lots of things for you to think about along the way and first of all let's consider how these two aircraft came into existence the Lockheed P-38 dubbed the Lightning by the British and the de Havilland mosquito were developed within a couple of months of each other nevertheless they debuted with their respective Air Forces within a year due to several reasons while one aircraft was welcomed with open arms but later underwent teething problem the other was met with a lack of confidence and then became the most sought after aircraft in the RAF Lockheed a fairly new player in the fighter production had suffered numerous rejections from the United States Army Air corps when it answered specification X 608 in 1937. this specification called for an aircraft that could reach a speed of 360 miles per hour at 20 000 feet while remaining full power at that altitude for at least an hour a rapid climb to altitude was also important to put this in context one of the best fighters the U.S could rely on at the time the p-36 hawk could reach a top speed of just 265 miles per hour if asked many Temporaries would not have thought lucky capable of producing a fighter to meet these requirements but their company president Robert E gross was not one of them he gave the green light to lockheed's chief engineer Hal Hibbert and another young employee called Clarence Kelly Johnson who immediately began designing the Prototype quickly Hibbert realized that no single-engine aircraft could meet the specification and so a twin power plant would be needed eventually the design was narrowed down to a few configurations ending finally with a twin boom design to handle the engines and superchargers with a pilot seated in an a cell in the middle just as the mosquito would be the P-38 prototype was built in great secrecy and it could be argued that the xp-38's initial performance Justified lockheed's investment of over six hundred thousand dollars of its own funds to produce it when first flown despite some aerodynamic issues the Prototype lived up to the design seems wildest expectations in terms of speed when the military learned of the results they were so impressed that they supported a decision to reveal the new aircraft on the weld stage as it attempted to beat the speed records set by Howard's Hughes it turned out that this would be one of the worst decisions in aviation history on February 11 1939 test pilot Lieutenant Benjamin S Kelsey attempted to fly from marchfield California to Mitchell field New York as quickly as it could during the flight the average ground speed he achieved was 420 miles per hour Lockheed were well on their way to smashing the record and making their aircraft the most desirable fighter in the world unfortunately due to engine problems on the approach to Mitchell Field Kelsey ended up in a sand pit on the Cold Stream golf course two thousand feet short of the runway the culprit was carburetor icing which is now something every modern student pilot is taught to manage at low engine settings the result was that the only P38 prototype was destroyed a test pilot was bruised and embarrassed and Hughes still held the record by just 17 minutes nevertheless Lockheed received orders to produce the P-38 for the US military this was both a blessing and a curse with the loss of the only P-38 in existence the design team was effectively put back two years in terms of its development what this meant for the lightning as an operational aircraft was that issues that should have been ironed out in the design shed were being encountered by young men fighting for their lives over enemy territory more on this later the mosquito which was the brainchild of De Havilland went into development just a year after the P38 though it wouldn't get the full support of the government until the outbreak of World War II through the company's earlier experiences with their Albatross and Flamingo twin-engine designs Jeffrey de Havilland was sure he could improve on an earlier specification p13-36 which has given rise to the Avro Manchester over a couple of years and with lots of back and forth for the year Ministry interest in his design grew in January 1940 the air Ministry issued specification b140 this latest specification called for a bomber capable of reaching 397 miles per hour at 30 000 feet and was written around the de Havilland 98 design and in case she didn't quite catch that yes while the P-38 was initially designed as a bomber Interceptor the mosquito started Life as a bomber the bitter fighting of the first world war had shown air power would play a significant role in any future conflict the concept of the bomber will always get through heavily dictated bomber design and tactics throughout the 1930s as bomber development began to outstrip fighter performance for example in the case of the Bristol Blenheim the desire for faster and faster bomber aircraft crew this is why de Havilland hit upon the idea of a bomber whose only defense would be its speed this was very distinctive from other bomber Concepts such as the Boeing B-17 which relied on heavy defensive Armament as speed relies directly on the overcoming of weight by thrust building a light bomber was crucial twinned with the high demand for a traditional aircraft construction materials and to haviland's earliest successful racing designs they opted to build with wood imagine walking into the air Ministry and pitching a design for a bomber aircraft built from Spruce and plywood that wouldn't have a single gun aboard you can imagine the reception that the de Havilland team received it was because because of its radical design that the mosquito could be said to have been delayed in its development for nearly two years the air Ministry was very much opposed to any undefended bomber and demanded that defensive Armament in the form of gun turrets or manually controlled rear firing guns being stalled the air Ministry also disliked the idea of a two-man crew instead asking for a third man to be added to the crew to help manage its tasks de Havilland refused rightly believing that their plans for a bomber and fighter bomber variant to be the best way to develop the design relenting a new specification was written around the existing design in January 1940 and in March and may orders were made for reconnaissance and long-range fighter variants respectively the First Flight of the Prototype mosquito which had been given its name in June 1940 was made in November of that year this isn't surprising seeing that a team had been secretly working on the design including an armed version since October 9 1939 under the leadership of Eric Bishop the birth of the mosquito is a confused and precarious course which could well have seen the Beloved British aircraft left on the floor of the design room ultimately it was a prospect of a fighter variant of the mosquito that could be said to have saved the entire project unbelievably the air Ministry then went on to tell de Havilland to prioritize the construction of the de Havilland tiger moth over the mosquito a request that was no doubt overturned by early 1941. so it could be said that both the P38 and mosquito had quite different starts but once put into operational service the two aircraft received very different receptions while the mosquito generally blossomed as a fighter bomber and long-range reconnaissance aircraft the P-38 very nearly was grounded entirely no aircraft leaves the r d lab perfectly formed from day one adjustments and redesigns are always called for this is why prototypes exist and if you happen to lose your own prototype in a illovised publicity stunt it's hard to iron out these little but deadly floors two of the biggest issues that face the P-38 made it one of the most undesirable aircraft to fly for us Pilots just entering the war one of the hardest things a new pilot needed to master when flying a modern fighter in the early 1940s was talk the tendency for an aircraft to drift to one side or the other could lead to accidents on takeoff and landings when you have a twin engine aircraft you can count interact this by having each propeller rotate in a different direction this was one of the things Lockheed learned for definite to do after the British specifically asked for right hand rotating engines and then promptly rejected the resulting version of the P38 as unsuitable so the P-38 didn't have the same issues as p51s or p-47s in this regard however the problem for a P38 is that when an engine failed on takeoff suddenly that torque Cuts in and the aircraft invariably flipped on its back many inexperienced Pilots died in this way and the emergency procedure to deal with the issue was never finalized until after the war this was the first thing that made Pilots wary of the P-38 another issue was its tendency to become uncontrollable in a steep dive this first occurred in early 1941 when major gilk encountered serious trouble while diving his lightning at high speed from an altitude of thirty thousand feet guilt survived the experience through brute strength but compressibility could have ripped his tail off as it did with other p-38s compressibility is not unique to the P38 but it certainly put the wind up new pilots who were being checked out on the type eventually both these issues and more were solved with subsequent variants and improved training once the rumors died the numerous advantages of a P-38 began to shine through unlike the lightning the mosquito suffered very few teething problems during his early introduction to operational units something shared in common with the P38 though was its slow production Lockheed had been surprised by how many orders it received for the P-38 and had to expand into an old whiskey Distillery to cope it was said of the mosquito at its only floor was that there was never enough of them to meet demand if you're enjoying the video so far please give it a like to help it spread to others and also consider supporting the channel by going to calibanrising.com support and see how you can help me produce these videos or trying to compare the P38 and mosquito the elephant in the room is of course speed the mosquito is often quoted as being the fastest aircraft in the world or at least the fastest piston engine aircraft however that wasn't the case as the war went on and as the aircraft was developed if you look at the early versions of the mosquito in P-38 you can clearly see that the lightning was faster a p-38e had a top speed of about 415 miles per hour while the most produced variant of the mosquito the FB Mark 6 had a top speed of 380 miles per hour to put that in context the fog walk 190a2 which was coming into service around the start of 1942 had a top speed of 410 miles per hour and the one are known G's which were introduced around the same time could get up to about 426 miles per hour both the P-38 and mosquito could outpace the Spitfire 5 which could only reach approximately 369 miles per hour not only do I adore both these aircraft due to the Addis safety they provide with a spare engine but also because they both pack An Almighty punch in the days where Britain and the United States operated predominantly only machine gun armed Fighters the P-38 was something of a unicorn by the time it entered service the P-38 had to be the most heavily armed single-seat Fighter the Americans had with one exception boasting 4.5 caliber machine guns which any Spitfire or hurricane pilot would have been grateful for it also had a 20 millimeter cannon another important factor of the p-38s design was that the central in a Cell allowed all five guns to be mounted right in front of the pilot this meant that no convergence was needed when the trigger was pulled the shells could be fired directly to the Target this gave the P-38 a devastatingly tight area of fire which could extend forward until the bullet started to drop off the night fighter and fighter bomber variant of the mosquito had almost place the exact same layout of its Armament it boasted four 20 millimeter Hispanic cannons mounted below the crew compartment which extended into the forward Bombay area in addition it had 4.303 machine guns in the nose now feel free to debate me on this in the comment section but I think the mosquito May slightly have the edge on the P38 here despite those additional 4p Shooters both aircraft could also be fitted to carry other Armament too the P-38 mosquito had variants that could be armed with self-propelling rockets one mosquito variant called the tetsu was fitted with a 57 millimeter molins gun for anti-shipping operations what both the aircraft had in common was their impressive bomb capacity the P-38 could be fitted with up to four thousand pounds of bonds let's remember that the B-17 one of the main states of the Eighth Air Force would usually carry around 4 800 pounds to German targets American Pilots put this impressive bomb capacity to Great use in the Pacific Theater in particular the mosquito first conceived as a bomber also had an impressive bomb capacity bomber variants were able to carry up to two thousand pounds of bombs in the internal Bombay this was done by a adapting the length of the 500 pound bomb fighter bomber variants could also carry two 500 Pounders in the rear part of the Bombay and an additional two under hard points on the wings however this wasn't a common configuration for this type A later variant of the mosquito could also carry a 4 000 pound cookie bomb and deliver it to targets deep inside Germany so again there's not that much to choose from in terms of armament for these two aircraft though the two aircraft would be used on their first operational missions in different theaters they would eventually both be used all over the world the P-38 claimed its first Victory near the Aleutian Islands in August 1942 and then 10 days later the second over Iceland the mozzie was used for its first sortie a reconnaissance mission the previous September range was always a factor in the missions the P-38 and mosquito flew although first conceived as a bomber Interceptor the P-38 would find itself used as the first long-range fighter available to the Americans at the high altitudes of these missions over Europe the lightning came into its own and was a real match for the German Fighters earning its Teutonic moniker the forked-tailed devil the P-38 eventually reached a maximum range of 2 600 miles with the use of drop tanks but I had a total combat range of about 450 miles these extraordinarily long legs would have the biggest impact act when the type began to be used extensively in the Pacific one of the biggest contributors to the extreme range that the P-38 could achieve was actually civilian Charles Lindbergh if you want to learn more about this please watch my full video on him which I'll link to above the mosquito also had pretty long legs and was able to carry a pretty big punch even in terms of bombs or guns right into the heart of Germany depending on the variant and use of drop tanks the mosquito could comfortably fly a 1500 mile Mission and often conducted numerous long-range trips in one night so in terms of range the P-38 certainly had their mosquito beat but before rushing to be checked out in the lightning you might want to consider what the extreme range might feel like sitting in the cockpit if you've ever had the opportunity to get up close and personal with the World War II era aircraft you'll notice that they are roughly finished inside only the most necessary equipment is installed and the Pilot's Comfort was never the priority while American fighters tended to be a little bit more spacious and logically laid out one could argue they were just as rustic inside although mosquito Crews felt just as cramped and chilliest P-38 pilots on Long missions temperature seems to be a common complaint that comes up among the American Pilots Captain John Lee a five kill Ace was generally appreciative of the P-38 as a fighting machine but in an interview complained about the aircraft's heater it simply didn't work he explained that the Air Force attempted to improve the frigid temperatures of their high altitude Fighter by issuing electrically heated flight suits again Lee explained that these only heated one if somewhat crucial area the Pilot's Fanny I'll just give them moment for my British views to stop laughing there when the p-38s were eventually sent out to relieve struggling p-39s and p40s in the Pacific the opposite problem revealed itself early variants of the P-38 didn't allow the pilot to lower the side cockpit Windows without risking extreme tail buffeting so Pilots were forced to sit in a sweltering cockpit due to the Pacific heat now I can personally relate to that as I'm an expat currently living in Taiwan and recording this in a pretty hot box room office this issue as with many others were the P-38 started to be phased out by the L Series of its development perhaps one point in the column for the mosquito in terms of crew Comfort was the fact that you weren't flying alone while the P-38 pilot may have experienced up to nine hours of monotonous flying perhaps even under radio silence the mosquito pilot had a navigator to guide him and perhaps a mate to steady his nerve upon the moment of action another quick point from the perspective of either flying these aircraft concerns the undercarriage the mosquito was a classic Tower dragger which most aircraft of the period were pilots learned from day one how to handle an aircraft with this landing gear configuration and perfected the ground handling and Landing skills needed still when Landing in Tower dragger there is always the moment where your entire forward view is blocked by the nose this happens when taxing as well or when taking off the P-38 had a tricycle landing gear configuration which is pretty much ubiquitous in modern general aviation aircraft from my limited experience of flying in a tower dragger and then getting my own flying license I can tell you that Landing a P-38 would have given you much better visibility of your surroundings than a mozzie one of the best advantages of hindsight is the ability to assess which of these two aircraft was the safest to operate in combat there was something like 10 000 or so p-38s built during the war and around 8 000 mosquitoes of course those are very rough numbers to determine how many of those aircraft were lost through enemy action is a little bit beyond my capabilities as a lowly tube touring however we can think of a few distinct factors that may have affected survivability in these two aircraft although the P-38 eventually proved itself a deadly adversary with developed tactics and its deadly Armament things didn't start that way when used against the axis forces in North Africa in 1942 the p-38s were at a distinct disadvantage in terms of being outnumbered and outclassed the P-38 was fast but when operated at altitudes below fifteen thousand feet it was totally dominated by the smaller and more maneuverable German fine writers this was the same thing it faced if it ever tried to dogfight with Japanese fighters in the Pacific Theater being a P-38 pilot at low altitude over Africa or Europe and especially under 300 miles per hour over the Pacific was a death sentence if you are unlucky enough to get shot down bailing out of the P-38 was no picnic either once you had opened your canopy which involved rolling down the side windows in early variants and popping the main canopy you couldn't just jump out it was feared that this slip string would carry a pilot straight into the rear stabilizer either seriously injuring him or killing him outright instead as the stricken P-38 fell from the sky you had to shimmy your way down the wing and only jump clear once the risk of hitting the tail was gone bailing out over Europe or Africa a pilot had a good chance of evading capture or at least ending up in a relatively safe prisoner of war camp as much of the p-38's operational career happened in the Pacific surviving a bailout brisk torture and death at the hands of the Japanese in the case of the mosquito the crew either sat directly over the exit hatch and the bomber variant or next to it in the fighter variant this suggests that bailing out of this aircraft was a tad easier what's more than mosquito anecdotally had a very low loss rate although I don't have hard cold numbers one source suggests that combat loss rate of as little three percent this may be an exaggeration but seeing that the mosquito was largely operated at night and often as a predator itself the number seems quite acceptable to me as fighter aircraft the P-38 and mosquito performed very differently the mosquito probably due to its bomber Origins was not an outstanding day fighter despite its Stellar nightfighter reputation against single-engine German and Japanese aircraft the mozzie was vulnerable ultimately this is why it was rarely used as an out and out fighter and didn't appear in the long-range escort role although one of the fastest aircraft in the war upon its operational debut by 1944 many axis aircraft could outpace it and outmaneuver it what's more the cockpit and canopy configuration meant the aircraft had numerous blind spots despite all this a mosquito that found itself in a fight with a single-enging fighter could live to tell the tale through its excellent evasive maneuvering of course any engagement that ends in a dogfight can cautiously be called a failure when a mosquito caught an enemy unawares its Armament would soon reduce it to a fiery wreckage the P-38 in comparison was a better day fighter with its far superior canopy design the pilot had a good view of the battlefield it had better acceleration and climb rate than the mosquito in a fight as well as a better roll rate it is clearly the better choice if you wanted to be a fighter pilot and Tangled the enemy as a night Fighter the mosquito was outstanding it shut down at least 600 enemy aircraft at night and could be used for defensive or offensive night operations the P-38 also saw some use as a night fighter in 1944 Lockheed converted a p-38l as a two-seater night Fighter radio equipment had to be relocated and the machine guns were equipped with anti-flash muzzles it had a top speed of 406 miles per hour and after successful trials an order was given to Lockheed to convert an additional 75 p-38s into night Fighters the aircraft were painted glossy black and entered service just before the end of the war when choosing between flying in the P38 or the mosquito and indeed fighting in it we might also want to consider the theater of operation both aircraft were used on every front the Allies fought on almost without exception however they didn't perform equally well on all of them the P38 although one of the only American fighters to be produced throughout the war did not truly reach maturity until the very end of the conflict although most of the accounts I've read and the interviews I've watched say the P-38 was a perfect airplane I feel that time has smoothed over some of the rougher Memories the P-38 was a state-of-the-art war machine and had a lot of complex systems to manage just like many of its contemporaries however the engine management system was perhaps a little more complex than the merlin-powered mosquitoes for example to increase power quickly it was first necessary to increase the RPMs and then Advance the throttle the mixture setting might also have to be swiftly adjusted after a period of cruising especially if jumped by an enemy doing so in the wrong order could lead to detonation in the engine which would eventually lead to engine failure the Allison engines were also susceptible to the cooler temperatures of high altitude flying in the European Theater which led to many p-38s returning to base with engine trouble before they got into combat the lack of suitable octane fuel and inadequate oil that the American squadrons experienced in Britain also hampered the p-38s effectiveness on operations this happened to such an extent that when Doolittle took over command of the Eighth Air Force he relegated the P-38 to the Pacific Theater in favor of p-51s and p-47s interestingly after p-51s replaced the Lightnings the kill ratio went from 1.5 to 1 to 7 to 1. ironically when the P-38 arrived in its new theater of operations it really came into its own and secured its places one of the best fighters of world or two to my knowledge the mosquito did not suffer similar issues with engine problems or the effect of altitude and climb on the engines one thing to note though is that in the heat of the Pacific the glue that kept the aircraft together in many places had a habit of coming unstuck however I wasn't able to find any accounts for this leading to failures in Flight if you have any stories to share please feel free to let me know in the comments of course you could argue that these aircraft were purely tools something to get the job done so why do they capture our imagination as they do it has to be those exceptional stories of the missions carried out by the pilots who flew them perhaps the most famous Mission flown by p-38s occurred on April the 18th 1943 and was codenamed Operation Vengeance the Americans had a score to settle and it would be the lightning that would make it happen nearly two years before the US had been attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor and The Man Behind it was Admiral Yamamoto but by 1943 the Americans had been able to crack the Japanese Naval code and had learned of an impending tour of the Solomon Islands by the Admiral a plan to intercept and to put it bluntly assassinate Yamamoto was hatched to avoid detection and attacking Force flying from Guadalcanal would have to avoid flying over Japanese occupied territory before launching the attack this would call for a 1 000 mile round trip the only aircraft capable of carrying out this mission was the P-38 so 18 aircraft from The 339th Fighter Squadron were assigned and they successfully shot down the Betty Bomber carrying Admiral Yamamoto this Mission although supposed to be secret was what established the P-38 as one of the best fighters in the Pacific the mosquito in addition to its work is a long-range reconnaissance aircraft a night fighter bomber and Pathfinder is probably best associated with the daring missions it performed at low level over occupied Europe from bombing gestapa headquarters to disrupting high-ranking Nazi speech givers to busting out resistance fighters from jail they are the stuff of a Hollywood producer's wet dreams of course they were not all Flawless operations and if you want to learn more check out all my mosquito videos on this channel so perhaps we could say in these terms the mosquito was possibly a little bit more dashing than the p-38s the mosquito was one of the most versatile military aircraft that has ever existed and was used for almost every role available from mine layer to air taxi Not only was it a potent War Machine it was also a propaganda Marvel used in some of the most iconic missions of the second world war the mosquito helped inspired Generations long after it was decommissioned if you are a fan of the mosquito then please consider helping fund the restoration of the next flying example by going over to people's mosquito.org.uk and donating or making a purchase the P-38 is also one of the most iconic warbirds the Americans produced during the conflict it was the aircraft of choice for the top scoring American Ace Richard bong who scored all of his 40 victories on the type despite initial teething problems the P-38 would go on to be an excellent fighter and fighter bomber and enjoy a racing career in peacetime so given the choice which aircraft would you want to go to Warren leave your answer the comment and also add any additional information you think I might have missed and if you made it this far please give the video a like and check out the next video I've made for you on screen

Channel: Caliban Rising - Aviation History

Views: 339,789

Keywords: aviation history, military aviation

Id: ChsLapzCH5c

Length: 29min 55sec (1795 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 04 2022