Warbird Information Exchange

This two seater P-38 was taken at Palomar Airport Ca. in March 1978.
As I remember it had been used in a Baa Baa Black Sheep episode when I took the photo.
I believe the owner was John Stokes.
Does anyone know what has happen to this aircraft ?

She would be the one and only remaining P-38M. Her second seat has been removed, and wound up on Scatterbrain Kid II. She ultimately went to Champlin and from there, she now lives in the Museum of Flight, most likely never to fly again.

This P-38 spent alot of time at Palomar under the care of the Martin crew.
I was able to watch her fly a few times.
Sad to say she went down in the late 70's and is no longer with us.

What a beauty that one is. There is something to be said for plain from the factory schemes. Sometimes less is more.

_________________
Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Ah! Fond memories. Thirty four years on.

Frank Strickler casually asked me if I would like to take a little spin with him in Johnnie Bolton's P-38. Would I ever?

Very, very cramped in the back there and barely possible to to get your eye behind the camera with even a standard lens.

After our second roll I asked Frank how many hours he had on the P-38. "First flight" - he replied.

PeterA









This looks like 'Connie' Edwards taking a peek at the rear set up.

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/p38regis ... 53097.html







Martin

_________________
Flying is easy: just learn how to throw yourself at the ground and miss

I remember when Champlin converted this one-of-a-kind, extremely rare two seat M model to single seat L model standards. I was pissed then, and I'm pissed now that we don't have that airplane like it was. I seem to remember that Champlin did the same thing with a Spitfire, in converting it to single seat standards. What was Champlin thinking?

Good thing they were using 200 mph duct tape instead of the regular 100 mph stuff!

_________________
It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

Peter those pictures and that story are great. Really the things that legends are made of. Cool stuff.

_________________
Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

I too thought converting the only remaining night fighter Lightning back to single seat configuration was a bad idea. At least the hardware should have been kept with the airframe to convert it back rather than being sold off. Imagine that airplane now, converted back to P-38M configuration, and finished in an all black scheme. Ah well, I can dream anyway. The Spitfire was not converted back to single seat but simply had the rear bubble removed and a piece of sheet metal installed. From what I've been told everything still remains in the rear cockpit and conversion back to two place would not be too difficult.

I totally agree with you! Imagine how awesome that M model would be on the airshow circuit and it's uniqueness! It would be the coolest P-38 out there flying! Don't get me wrong, as I enjoy ANY flying P-38, but I really can't believe no one else has tackled the various versions of the P-38 in their restorations. How about a droop snoot version! How cool would that be, and you would be able to take people up for a ride in a more comfortable fashion that they do now. I applaud museums like the Yanks Air Museum at Chino, who have restored their P-38 back to totally stock F-5 standards, complete with cameras. That plane is the best! It's just too bad that it will probably never fly again, other than a possible one-time ferry flight to the new Yanks Museum whenever it gets completed. But you have to give them credit for doing something other than the standard P-38 restoration!

I understand that the second seat and it's hardware is still with the CAF with the "Scatterbrain" project. Does anyone know how hard it would be to convert a fairly stock single-seater P-38 to "M" standards and install that second seat? Is it fairly easy, or would it require major re-engineering?

That's nice to know about the Spitfire. Hopefully, some day, it will get converted back to it's former glory.

"Droop snoot and M models, all the way!"