P-38 Lightning - nearly a great fighter?

[Mudge]

WHOA...VERY interesting stuff. Keep it up.
Has of this talked me out of my love affair with the P-38?
As the originator of this thread might say,
"Not bloody likely".:wink:

Mudge the P-38 freak

[JDK]

Lots of great responses, folks, much appreciated. Lots to chew on too.

A couple of thoughts:

The visibility from and the distinctive planform of are points I'd not considered; yet come up again and again. A proper bubble canopy might have helped a little, but nothing would address the big peripheral blind spots. Thanks guys, and thanks for Gunny's thumbnail sketch...

For an aircraft with it's design roots in the late '30s, it held it's own pretty well, but any long range fighter of that time frame would have issues with going up against short range interceptors. NOT ITS JOB. It was designed to be a high altitude bomber interceptor, not a dogfighter, IIRC. The bf110 was supposed to fit this role as well...but that is a different thread altogether!

At the risk... IIRC, the Bf 110 was a 'Destroyer', a heavy (armed) more than a long range fighter. As to the unequal combat issue, that's always been there, and there are ways to capitalise on strengths against 'better' foes - My impression was that in Europe, for various reasons, there was a loss of confidence in the type, rather than making it work with better tactics and other things - maintenance etc.

Most of what I've learned about the P-38 comes from a book called "The Lockheed P-38 Lightning" by Warren M. Bodie. He addresses all of your questions in it, but the thing that struck me about the P-38 from reading the book is that it really wasn’t suited for the climate of Northern Europe. The high humidity and sub-freezing temperatures at altitudes the P-38 was required to operate in were very hard on the turbo regulators, causing frequent failures.

Thanks! I'm a bit bug-eyed at the 'high humidity of Europe'. Not the Europe I know, and the PTO was unarguably a lot more humid most of the time than Europe ever gets. I also thought temperatures at height were, above a given point, pretty similar (I'm no met whizz) but it appears (from others posts) the issue was higher altitude operations in the ETO where the temperature (not humidity) became an issue. Comments?

The Allisons, operated at high boost from the turbos, did not like the lower octane fuels used in Britain at the time of the P-38’s introduction, also causing frequent failures. The book states that the engines acquired the nickname of “Allison Hand Grenades”. The problems were much fewer when operated on US fuel in the MTO and the PTO.

Didn't most fuel in the UK come from the US? (Good high-octane fuel from US sources was one of the often missed factors in the Battle of Britain.) They certainly weren't getting it locally. Again, there was a suggestion that one of the problems was the fuel was the anti-knock lead was precipitating out, or not mixed properly...

Were higher-ups making the same mistake with P.38s in Europe as the Bureau of Ordinance was doing with torpedoes in the Pacific?

Interesting comparison. Certainly Lockheed were busting to get it right. My impression is that the design was both complex and knocking on the edges of understood aerodynamics - both the guys 'back home' and the guys in the field didn't really have the knowledge and needed greater skills to get the thing just to work. - Fritz's point I think is a good summary.

The P-38 certainly was a well-designed aircraft for it's time, and perhaps with more careful employment might have done much more in the European Theater.

Kind of my thinking - but it's hard to point at one fixable factor that would have made it happen (or was there?) On the other hand the guys did well to get it as sorted as they did, by which time it was no longer rated, nor needed.

More please!

[RyanShort1]

James,

Some more thoughts from Bodie's book:

Bodie does make a case (not well documented in what I've read so far) about the fuel situation and the Allison engine and this in combination that the pilots in the ETO had little training on long range cruise and leaning techniques meant that the engines were harder to maintain. He has at least one quote from an Italian Theater P-38 pilot to this effect.

Tactics and odds were different when the P-38s were being used as escorts and the numbers of '38s being used weren't all that great - the P-38 being the longest-ranged fighter in the ETO at one point in late 1943 there were never more than 75 P-38s available for deep penetration in that time period often facing odds of 10 to 1.

Bodie makes some rather distressing allegations about USAAF engine (and other) procurement and the men involved. Even putting forward the idea that certain companies were favored for reasons of personal gain.
Apparently Lockheed DID study the possibility of putting the Merlin in the '38 and there would have been some advantages.

Production - By early 1944 - several YEARS after the AAF could have had the P-38 production ramped up, the North American guys were delivering about 375 P-51s compared to about 210 P-38s coming off the lines. Bodie blames much of this not on Lockheed, but on the War Production Board's choices.

Ryan

[hang the expense]

P-38 as a fighter.... I won't really address JDK's questions per se... but as a fighter pilot who has some time in P-38's I'll take a stab at evaluating it's good an bad points... in a rough, quick and dirty way...

-For the day (early in the war) it was pretty fast, could dive like crazy.... but you couldn't use that because of compressibility... BIG problem, at altitude it could outclimb a lot of the opposition... a good thing...

-Visibility anywhere but forward is poor... really poor, which is a BAD thing from a defensive standpoint... tactics can overcome that... but the tactics used in WWII by and large could not... which was a BAD thing...

-Firepower was centralized and concentrated... plus vis forward is fantastic... both of which are REALLY good things...

-With maneuver flaps it could turn very well slow speed... but the vis is so bad I'd hate to fight there.... keep your speed up and blow through would be the way to survive in this airplane...

-The airplane is WAY complicated to fly... from cruise configuration to combat configuration requires more than twice the moves a single engine fighter requires.... a REALLY bad thing... plus the vis in the cockpit ain't so hot either (hard to monitor what needs to be monitored... like airspeed)...

-Range was a good thing, reliability was so-so... two engines made up for some of that... but the whole mx question is a problem... that's pretty much why it wasn't used after the war...

-Training early in the war was pretty much takeoff, fly around, do it 2-3 times then go to combat... jeez I'm surprised the losses weren't larger.... late in the war guys would have 100 hours in the airplane before heading to combat.... a really good thing...

In short, would I fly it in combat... it wouldn't be my first choice.... but heck yes, any fighter is better than no fighter... and if you're wondering it is a HOOT to fly!

We can speculate for days about all that other stuff.... Hey Gunny,Believe it or not the 49th Fighter group flew P-38s while stationed in Korea up to 1949 and the were cut up and bulldozed right there at(I think) Kimpo when the got P-80s.

gunny

[Dan Johnson II]

This note in the wartime history of the 436th FS, 479th FG, 8th AF, has always stuck with me when it comes to the 38 vs 51 bit.

This was written at the time in December 44.

"The first pilot to finish his missions this month was Lt. Herman Hoverstan, strictly a P-38 boy, with an intense dislike for the P-51 Spam Can. On the 10th the very day Captain Rosness completed his combat tour, and in short order Lt. Spencer and Struby finished theirs. These boys all came from the original group of Palmdale boys and the few who remain can be counted on the fingers of one hand."

I think it speaks to the guys who were trained on 38s and really knew how to use them vs the guys who transitioned to them and were trained on single engine fighters before coming to the ETO.

I've talked to some 474th FG 38 guys and they are very proud of the fact they flew the 38 until the end of the war in the ETO.

Like any of the fighters in production they rectified things as time went on. I believe the J-25 or L models of the 38 certainly could compete with other piston engine fighters of the time.

I also think folks forget that all the fighters had their problems as they entered combat. The list of problems with the P51B certainly wasn't short to start, but as with any bird, they figured out how to fix them as the war continued.

[marine air]

As a kid, my friend's grandfather came to visit and knowing I like airplanes they told me he was a retired Lockheed engineer. I asked my friend to ask him about the P-38, the only thing I knew about Lockheed. His grandfather was more proud of other designs and didn't think the P-38 was one of their better designs. He didn't like the landing gear for some reason.
I also think the Davis wing that was supposed to be revolutionary turned out to be a dud. It was only used on the P-38 and B-24, both pre-war designs.
My impression is that the engines are fine. Allison was an accomplished marine engine builder as well before the war. The P-38 was just very complicated to keep tuned up and properly maintained in the field with wartime conditions and draftee mechanics that just a couple of years earlier were working on fabric covered, fixed gear, biplanes.
The P-38 initially had an abysmal safety record initially. Look at the accident reports for 1942. They were losing them every day in stateside accidents. Quite simply, the technology on the P-38 , like the B-26 Marauder got too far ahead of the training programs.
The late Ferris Thomas and Fred Bunyan, both ferry command pilots told me during the war they flew everything the Air Corps had except the P-38, B-29, if that tells you anything.
Turbos- I think the airplane just needed the extra power and that is why they were a dog without them. Ask any Mustang pilot what it would be like to use 26 inches of manifold pressure on takeoff instead of 61 inches. What would that do to the takeoff runway length requirements? It wasn't so much the altitude thing. Aerial warfare changed as the war got under way. Pre-war, the Americans used their fighters more for defense of their own troops and ground emplacements. They typically stayed below 18K feet.
The P-38 , for 1937 had stellar perfomance compared to anything else available before WW II.

[tom d. friedman]

most of what i was going to say has already been mentioned, but i know it sounds miniscule, but 1 quirk was the roll down window, if it wasn't rolled up at take off then bad buffeting occurred.

[congobob]

I don't think the P-38 used a Davis wing. It's wing root airfoil is a NACA 23016 and the tip airfoil a NACA 4412. Both of these are rather thick sections which helped bring about the compressibility problems seen later.

You can find more info on what airfoils aircraft used here:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~akmitra/ ... _usage.htm

[Nathan]

Did somebody mention P-38's and torpedoes in the same post ?







And then mention P-38's way up in Alaska ?

technically thats a P-322!

[J. Armstrong]

In "Vee's for Victory", ( Daniel D. Whitney, Schiffer Military History, 1998 ) the author notes that much of the high altitude performance and reliability problems were not strictly speaking the fault of the Allison engine, but of the leading edge intercoolers These were a limiting factor until the later intercoolers were finally introduced, which I believe was too late for timely use in the ETO.
He also notes that while the Merlin was considered for the P38, several factors other than politics may be the reasons for dropping that idea.
1) Availability of the Merlin vis-a-vis production capacity )
2) The necessity for significant redesign when productioon could least afford it.
3) The advantages of the Merlin in this appplication were questionable. After all, the Allison in the 38 was already two stage supercharged, always the bone of contention in the Allison vs Merlin arguments in other a/c such as the P40 or 51. On pg 331, table 15-11 compares Allison and Merlin P38 performance projections. The Merlin 38 showed virtually identical sped, but notably higher fuel consumption.

I had an uncle who flew Lightnings with the 15th. He died when I was too young to ask in depth questions, but I remember several random comments he made, which are interesting in that they very much reflect many of the comments already posted here. In no particular order:
On tactics and procedures , he often commented they were very much feeling their way along, improvising and adapting and evolving on the run.
On the 38, loved it, especially the fact that it was a twin. He came home often on one engine. Said they were prone to blaming the engines until the problems became better understood. He had several kills, all hit and run as he said he didn't see much future dogfighting the more agile single engine Mes and FWs
Flew a Mustang a few times ( not in combat ) and stated it seemed unequivocably the better escort fighter.

[ww2John]

Just to follow-up (...timing...)

The February 2009 issue of EAA's Warbirds magazine has a good article (page 16) by John Cilio: "The P-38 Lightning - Radical, Non-Radial".

Among other p38 details, Mr Cilio talks about the added dive flaps. There are plenty of good pictures throughout the article, including a Lockheed staged photo I had not seen before of Kelly Johnson holding a dive flap & showing it to Tony LeVier.

Note to Mudge:
This issue also has a large cockpit shot of EAA's P-38 (page 26) and several good air-to-air shots of Ron Fagen's award-winning Ruff Stuff.

[Mike Bates]

9. Could the range achievements pioneered by Lindbergh in the Pacific have been achieved in the ETO and MTO?

From Bodie's book.

"Col. Hough went along on P-47 missions and P-38 missions as often as he felt it was necessary. He stated, without equivocation, that the majority of the problems stemmed from moral and stubborn determination to ignore certain instructions. Cass Hough said that many P-38 pilots refused to fly at high manifold pressure and low rpm because "it gave them a rough ride". He proved that it was the best way to go for range. That was exactly what Charles Lindbergh proved half-way around the world....later that year"

If you don't have his book "The Lockheed P-38 Lightning" by Bodie I would recommend getting it. I have around 80 books on the P-38 and it in my opinion is the best book covering the technical aspects of the P-38 Lightning.

Mike

[JDK]

Thanks chaps, most interesting.

I've never heard that the P-38 had the 'Davis wing' and it doesn't fit the description of the wing AFAIK.

I'll have a look for the Bodie book.

Any further thoughts?