P-38 "White 33" on May 7

[C VEICH]

Some photos of the aircraft on a test flight have been posted to the P-38 Lightning Facebook group page, naturally with Steve Hinton at the controls. https://www.facebook.com/groups/662036060531177/

BTW, Westpac is now the registered owner of this aircraft.

Pretty cool that there are now 8 P-38's flying, two of which being the F-model.

The early P-38 used the leading edges as heat exchangers for the turbos as I recall. Glacier Girl has later leading edges because the team wasn't able to reproduce the early ones.

As I recall reading at one point, Westpac got the jigs and some left over components (including those early leading edges) from the Glacier Girl restoration to aid in the restoration of "White 33".

Could you post some pics here for us Facebook impaired?

The photos of the aircraft in flight were removed from FB at the request of the owner apparently.

[mastaphixa]

In the images of the interior there are pieces of what appears to be armor plate with a placard on them that says "FACE". What was the purpose of this placard?

[T-28mike]

You are correct in your assumption that those are armored plates. Aircraft armored plates are hardened on one side, that side is referred to as the face and is the side that would face the oncoming round. The panels were placarded with "face" to assist ground (and manufacturing) personnel in installing the plates correctly.

[digitalkg]

Hey all, wanted to let you know that White 33 is flying on Monday, October 17th at WestPac Restorations/The National Museum of World War II Aviation. 11am media day start time, flying that afternoon. $5 admission to the museum. Advise parking on the street as the lot next to the museum may fill up fast.

Details on https://www.facebook.com/wwiiaviation/

Weather dependent.