A local small airport hosts a vintage airplane museum, and they hold monthly events where they showcase 1 vintage plane. This month was the P38 Lightening. I have friends that attend the shows every month, and I've been meaning to get out there, finally made it to this one. The P38 was the star of the show, but there was some other very cool hardware there too.
My late brother-in-law flew P-38s in the Philippines in WW II. He lost one in the jungle and spent a couple of weeks getting back to his unit with help from the natives. He had to ditch one in the ocean due to engine failure, and my sister found U.S. Navy film footage of his rescue by a PBY. He loved that plane!!
The P-38 covered dad's Group on many missions in the SWPA. A pic dad took at 3-mile or Kil-Kila, Port Moresby
Thanks for posting. Gorgeous machines, all of them. I'm in awe of those machines and the men who flew them.
Here on the East Coast, The Collings Foundation has a number of WW II aircraft that they ferry around to different airports for viewing AND for a fee they will take you up in them. B-24, B-17, B-25 and a P-51 Mustang.
B17 has always been my favorite, dunno why. Jack Roush owns a p51 (maybe 2?)and I've seen it overhead a few times. I live a stone's throw from MIS and they do a big airshow about a half hour away and I know he flies it in for that sometimes, or has in the past. We think hot rods are loud, lol, nuthin sounds like a p51 buzzing your house a few hundred feet up! Other than the modern stuff of course. They did a flyover with 4 f16s to start a Nascar race some years back, and those things went haulin *** over the house, just off the deck. Damn plates were rattling in the cupboards, I thought it was an earthquake at first....
Hahaha! Yep, LOVE that sound. I was surprised how quiet the P-38 was. I guess they route the exhaust back through the length of the body; whereas the P51 has just those short individual pipes maybe less than a foot long. Definitely makes a big difference.
The P-38 had a turbo charged V-12 Allison (which made the exhaust quieter) vs. the normally aspirated V-12 Rolls Royce Merlin used in the P-51. You are right... the Merlin's exhaust pipes are probably less than a foot long. When both of those engines were used in hydroplane racing, the non-turbo charged Allisons sounded very similar to the Rolls. Both were thrilling to hear, and the hydro's were aptly called "Thunder Boats"!
I'm am old school wood boat guy and I've shown my boats at a few shows where there was old school hydros running Allison's. They're insane. I believe there's a few shots of some in the wood boat thread on here. On a side note, interestingly enough, when I typed 'shots' my phone tried to auto insert whiskey. So I must be doin something right....
Thanks for posting the pics! The P38 is just a high water mark for propeller driven fighters. Mesmerizingly beautiful. Like flying a pair of planes at one time.
They are/were a work of art, and a damned fine aircraft. One downside though was being so heavily powered in a (relatively) small airframe, if one engine went bad, the pilot had to take IMMEDIATE action to feather props and the remaining engine, or the torque from the good engine would cause them to corkscrew, usually into the ground! A lot of planes and pilots were lost that way.
Howard Hughes almost was as well, but due to counter rotating props his spy plane had that the p38 doesn't. Howard was pissed when he saw the p38 though, and said Lockheed stole his xf 11 design. Looking at both planes, it's hard to argue they didn't....
In designing the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, the decision was made to reverse the counter-rotation such that the tops of the propeller arcs move outwards (counterclockwise on the left and clockwise on the right), away from each other. Tests on the initial XP-38 prototype demonstrated greater accuracy in gunnery with the unusual configuration.
Yes, they had to learn this the hard way. It was early in the history of twin engine planes, they hadn't figured this out yet.
This is correct, they did have counter-rotating props. If you can view this video on facebook of the start up (shot by my buddy who was also at the show) you can see the prop on the far side rotates counter-clockwise and the prop on the near side rotates clockwise. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=552300426993335
the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton Ohio is my favorite. it has TWO of the five intact Twin mustangs, one XP-82 Prototype, and one F-82 production. picture for reference.
Thanks for posting these great shots of great vintage aircraft. I always did appreciate the P-38. A couple of shots I took at Oshkosh. Thanks from Dennis.
I should have noted I meant two sets of counter rotating props per engine on the xf 11. The Pic above they switched it after Howard nearly killed himself....
When I was a young know it all boat mechanic my boss threw me one of these out drives to rebuild. I finally got it done, but that job certainly took the chip off my shoulder! Lol. Looking back on it now it wasn't that bad, but as a newb, whew!
That's the way I felt after doing my first powershift transmission for a dozer, about twice the number of parts as in an engine, and each and everyone has to be in a specific place in a specific order, and if you get it wrong it don't work. Normally a 40 hour job, it probably took me 60+. After that I asked the boss for something simple and was glad when he gave me the job of breaking down a track chain to have the pins and bushings rotated. Nothing but slinging hammers and chippers and a 1" impact gun, all back work. My brain appreciated the rest.
A few more shots from Oshkosh. The very cool, sleek, rare, Spartan Executive. This was the Lear Jet of its day back then. Rare to see two of them together, only a hand full survive today. Enjoy from Dennis.
That spartan is beautiful, don't think I've ever seen one of those. This was always one of my favorite vintage aircraft too, staggerwing beech. When I was like 14 I worked at a hobby shop and had I don't know how many rc planes. I built this huge stagger beech rc, took me forever. First flight I crashed it into the damn lake and lost the plane, motor and all my servos and receiver. I was PISSED! Lol. Beautiful plane though.
Hey @210superair Ya just gotta love the cool, cl***ic, Staggerwing Beechcraft. These were right up there in the same cl*** as the Spartan Executive, they were used primarily for business men to fly cross country. They were fast and very advanced for that particular time period. The red one on the ramp, I photographed that one, when it was at FLABOB Airport a number of years ago. Thanks from Dennis.
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