P-38

“Forked-tailed devil.” (Photo by Philip Makanna©.)

—The December 2017 entry of my Ghosts WWII warbirds calendar is one of my favorite propeller airplanes, a Lockheed P-38 Lightning.
As desirable as the P-51 Mustang. All it lacks is the Packard-Merlin engine.
As far as I know, the P-38 was a first product of Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson. who later became head of Lockheed’s famous “Skunk Works.”

F-104 StarFighter. (“Widow-Maker.”)

“Skunk Works” lasted a long lime with Johnson at the helm. Many airplanes were Skunk Works; perhaps best was the F-104 StarFighter.
In 1939 an experimental pre-production P-38 set a cross-country speed record. Californy-to-New York in 7 hours, 2 minutes, not counting two refueling stops. But the airplane suffered carburetor icing and crashed.
Despite that the Army Air Corps was still interested. The P-38 required monkeyshines to convince the Air Corps. Being twin-engined, it didn’t meet the requirement for single-engine fighter-planes.
A new category was begun to allow the P-38, so-called “intercepters.” And with two engines a P-38 also needed more wing.
No matter, it still was gorgeous; also a worthy fighter. It was maneuverable and fast — the first fighter to exceed 400 mph.
Moreover its guns were in the nose, not the wings. You didn’t hafta worry about getting your target into the “convergence-zone:” the area ahead of the plane where wing-shot bullets converged.
With a P-38 it was just aim-and-shoot.
The P-38 also had counter-rotating engines. The engine and propeller on the left rotated the reverse of the one on the right. This counteracts rotation effect, which had to be balanced (“trimmed”). If both props rotated the same way, the airplane drifted from straight ahead.
Pilots loved the P-38. They could get away with grievous mistakes.
Years ago I went to a historic plane airshow because I heard a P-38 would attend. It landed and parked. Motors off the props stopped rotating. “Oh yeah,” I said; “counter-rotating props. I forgot.”

First P-38 I ever saw. (Long-ago photo by BobbaLew.)

The airshow P-38 wasn’t much to look at. Restoration had just begun. But it was a P-38, and airworthy. I guess P-38s are rare; my WWII warbirds site says only about five remain.
As a child I had a plastic model of a P-38. I think it was yellow, completely unpainted. I never painted anything — too sloppy.
Apparently that twin-boom tail could be troublesome. Power-dive a P-38 and those twin booms would vibrate toward 500 mph. Controls would lock up. Some P-38s crashed because of that.
P-38s were also turbo-supercharged to operate at high altitude. It’s too bad they weren’t the Mustang’s hot-rod Packard-Merlin V12. But I’d be willing to bet some P-38s were converted.

The greatest airplane of all time. (Photo by Brian Johnstone.)

What I say now is “the next airshow I attend will have a ‘Connie’ in it.” I think Lockheed’s Constellation is the greatest airplane of all time. It uses the P-38 wing, enlarged of course.
It too was developed by Kelly, etc. Why is it so many Skunk Works airplanes looked great?

• The F-104 StarFighter was called a “widow-maker” because it needed much higher approach and landing speeds. An unknowing pilot might crash.