How the P-38 Flew Faster and Higher Than Its Rivals
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- Опубліковано 23 тра 2019
- The P-38 featured a revolutionary design that enabled it to travel higher and faster than any other American fighter plane during the 1930s. It did this with huge, in-line engines and a super turbo charger.
From the Series: Air Warriors: P-38 Lightning bit.ly/2YutM2r - Розваги
60 years ago I lived in a poor family.I only got one toy for Christmas,it was a cast iron P 38.I still love that plane.
Its worth quite a bit I bet. $
Me too!
@@thisismagacountry1318 remember that movie...hilarious even though I am liberal
This 59 year old had one also. Ahh the hours playing with it.
My grandpa gave me one !
These videos leave you hanging.
a little too brief! I guess this content is designed for the 1 minute attention span. Did not discuss why the P38 had 2 engines and its effect on the cost compared to other single engined contemporary fighters, its failure in the ETO, the delay in sorting out some of its control issues at high diving speeds and its success in the Pacific. If you want a real video content on this subject go to "Greg's Airplanes & Automobiles" on UA-cam.
@@briancavanagh7048 Thanks for the information.
click on the full video
HotRodRay
where do you click?
I concur 100%...👍
The P-38 was always my favorite growing up. I remember some parked along a fence at the Lockheed air terminal in Burbank in the 50's. My dad got a ride in one with Tony Levier while they were in production. I had heard that the prototype crashed because it ran out of fuel due some delay in allowing it to land. One thing for sure is as the people who were there depart us the more these stories are told the further away they get from fact and reality. Still it is a beautiful aircraft!
The P-38 Allison V-12s did not use "super turbo chargers". They were TURBO SUPERCHARGERS from General Electric.
The real story is in FORK TAILED DEVIL by Martin Caiden.
The Allison V-12 engines were the most powerful aero engines available in 1938. To get the required performance two were needed. Also, the Allison was a modular construction that made counter-rotating props a simple solution to stability. Lockheed used advanced metal construction to make the aircraft very slippery. Kelly Johnson put the turbos behind the engines which led to the twin tail booms. The P-38 was the best fighter gun platform of WW II. Four .50 caliber machine guns and a cannon mounted in the nose, 6000 rounds a minute accurate to 1000 yards.
The cross country flight of the prototype was not a Lockheed promotion. It was a USAAF publicity stunt. The crash was not pilot error or carburetor icing. The destination air field was not informed about the flight arrival and the P-38 flew around waiting for landing permission until fuel ran out. The loss of the prototype set back the production program by almost two years. The P-38 high speed, high ceiling and long range made it the most important USAAF fighter for most of WW II. It was considered so important to Operation Torch invasion of North Africa that the invasion may have been delayed until they arrived. They had to be ferried by accompanying B-17s across the North Atlantic. P-38s destroyed the most enemy aircraft in the Pacific and were flown by the top Aces in WW II.
The P-38 was loved in the Pacific because it had two engines and with a lot of missions flown over water - or worse jungle - having a spare engine really meant a lot. It was also flown at altitudes and using tactics that were different than in Europe which caused it to be much more successful. German aircraft could dive away from the P-38's but Japanese aircraft couldn't.
There are a couple of other things to keep in mind about the P-38's in Europe and the Desert.
1) They and the P-40's were there at the beginning for the Americans long before the P-47's much less the P-51's. Whatever their faults - they WERE what we had. P-38's were there in 1942 - whereas the P-51's didn't get there until 1944.
2) Those P-40's and P-38's were going against the Luftwaffe at it's peak. It had all those highly experienced pilots whereas ours were not yet veterans - so - the Americans in particular had a learning curve to go through that the British and German pilots had already experienced.
Another factor in the P-38's performance in Europe was a combination of technical problems, aircraft complexity and pilot confidence in the aircraft.
There were two problems with the engines in Europe because of the cold, at altitude. One was that the engines never warmed up enough and the oil would congeal. The other was that the lead in the gasoline separated so that the engines would backfire. The distance of the engines from the cockpit also made it cold and that was disliked. Given that any multi-engine aircraft is much more complex to fly than a single engine aircraft and not understanding what caused the engine problems the pilots were reluctant to push the engines. As the P-38's also suffered from compressibility pilots were hesitant about diving the aircraft.
Thus, the aircraft itself had much more capability than the pilots flying it were able or willing to make use of.
With all it's guns pointing straight ahead in the nose - you could aim at your target rather than just spraying the area - as you had to do with wing guns that had a convergence zone. A good shot could make use of that whereas less good shots might have been better off with Spray and Pray. P-38's could loop well, had maneuvering flaps and counter rotating engines so that you could help turn the aircraft by adjusting the throttles. Good pilots on occasion out flew Spitfires because of this - which most Anglophiles refuse to believe - but it did happen. The thing is - this required a good pilot, who was very familiar with the aircraft and confident in what it could do.
Lockheed sent a team with their prime test pilot over and in addition to solving some of the aircraft's problems they toured the bases and showed pilots just what the AIRCRAFT was capable of. A set of kits was put together to fix the problems - but when 200 of these were flown in - the RAF shot the plane down by mistake. After that - P-51's started showing up - they were easier to fly - and people in the Pacific wanted the P-38's - so they were phased out in Europe.
Given that by the time the P-51's showed up - a lot of those Luftwaffe Experten - were dead at the hands of guys flying P-38's, P-40's and P-47's - the guys flying Mustangs had a much easier time of it in 1944 than the boys who were flying in the desert in 1942.
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I remember reading a story about how pilots said that the P-38 was a poor high altitude aircraft because of its Allison engines. The P-38, of course, was turbocharged rather than having the single stage supercharger that plagued the P-40 and P-39.
So one commander said to three others, ‘we’re going up in a four ship formation and we’re going to keep climbing until the first pilot says “uncle”’.
So up they went. I can’t remember the figure but it was well past 30,000 feet. He heard a garbled “uncle” from the back of someone’s throat in a pressure demand O2 mask. The planes were still climbing at 300 fpm.
Another one was when there were concerns about range flying long overwater sectors. They brought in Charles Lindbergh to find out what was going on and to get better range out of the aircraft. He found that the pilots were using low boost, high RPM settings, and mixture in AUTO RICH to baby the engines. He immediately told them to change the procedure to operate at max continuous power, at the lowest RPM allowable, and to manually lean the mixture to peak. The pilots protested but Lindbergh assured them that they were army spec engines and would keep running under those conditions. They probably ran better due to lower frictional losses and less lead fouling.
Final story which highlights the superiority of the P-38 in the Pacific. A pilot comes on the radio ‘help... my plane is damaged, I’m losing coolant’. Another voice comes on ‘don’t worry, just calm down and feather it!’ ‘Feather? Hell! I’m in a P-51!’
@18tangles Hello Tangles! I was just talking about you!
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Very informative comment, thank you! I used to work with an old PhD chemist who flew P-38s with the 15th Air Force in Italy. He hurt his back crash landing three P-38s, poor guy. One day, over a bad neighborhood in Germany, he saw a weird shape flash past his gunsight and he just fired at it. He then got the heck out of there. Gun camera footage showed that he shot at (he said down) an Me262 jet. I built model airplanes as a kid (still do at age 61) and the P-38 remains my favorite WWII aircraft, behind the Mosquito, Hellcat and P-47, in that order.
@@jmfa57 I'm more of a Corsair guy but in the flight sims for Europe (Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe) I liked the P-38 and P-47. Not a fan of the Mustang ... every time I got shot at my eyes would jerk to that engine temperature gauge - if it budged - it was climb for altitude and head home NOW.
I had models (mostly Monogram (1/32nd scale ?)) of all of them. Ha! Ha! I also had a combat box of 12 1/72'nd (mostly) scale B-17's hanging from strings held to our acoustic ceiling in the den with pins being attacked by a bunch of German fighters with some allied planes flying in for support. The low box was over a couch - so you could stand up and sit down on it - but the planes were just a little above eye level. I've still got all those things in a couple of old speaker boxes in storage but I've not seen them in over 30 years. I'm 67.
.
Wow! Your knowledge is amazing! Great to have this input!!
Admiral Yamamoto became intimately acquainted with the P-38 and its infamous encounter with the Admiral, which proved his ultimate demise and undoing.
My grandpa flew an xp-38 in the pacific theater in wwii. He was a photo recon pilot and flew all kinds of amazing aircraft. A true pilots pilot.
Rich Bassett yea did he tell you most pilot comeback with one engine because the supercharger on the engine is unreliable and the xp 38 cant fly to certain altitude so they abandon them in Europe and change to a spitfire instead.
Alis Holst. I don’t recall any stories of engine failure. I believe his was turbo-supercharged? The p-38 had good range and speed. He was pre-cia army air core intelligence. So they took care of him.
@@richbassett7111 pretty sure you can turbo super charge an aircraft. its one or the other.
Early p38 engines would fail in European skies because the dry air would starve the engines. However the p38 was used primarily over Africa and most importantly in the Pacific, where it shot down more planes than any other USAAF plane in ww2.
The British cancelled their order for the P38 because America would not allow the super chargers to be exported. This left the aircraft under powered at altitude. Otherwise they would have been an excellent aircraft for the Royal Air Force. Once the embargo on the super chargers was lifted the made an superb platform for aerial reconnaissance for the Royal Air Force.
One thing the British did tell Lockheed was to have the engines contra-rotating as this helped cancel the effects of the torque from the engines and improved its flight characteristics.
The Answer (since the video never provided it): It used two engines. That was the solution Hal Hibbard (chief engineer at Lockheed) and Kelly Johnson came up with when the specs called for a fast, high-climbing interceptor that could haul a cannon. They decided to build a twin-engined airplane to get the power they needed.
I seem to recall, why it had 2 engines, was the original requirement for the aircraft was to clear a certain height after a specified take off roll. Sorry I have forgotten the actual numbers. So they figured that they needed 2 motors as one engine would not meet the requirements.
It's unusual how the initiating spec ended up contravening with applied practice. It was standard procedure in the P-38 to take off with no flaps at all, as they considered getting up to safe single-engine speed (120 mph) more important than the initial climb-out. They would only use flaps if there was an obstacle at the end of the field which they had to climb clear of.
THANK YOU for answering the question I tried to watch this video to find out!
But now I'm starting to wonder... if that's the case, why did they abandon the two-engine design? Sure, the later planes had stronger/better engines that made them viable fighters with only one engine, but then why not take that more-powerful engine and double it again? Make your fighter plane even faster and more capable to gain a greater advantage over the enemy!
Sure, it increased production costs and it doesn't scale the same; it won't make it twice as fast. But you'd still get a performance boost, so why wasn't it an effective choice?
Beautiful aircraft. One of the best of WW2
Admiral Yamamoto would likely agree.
But it took half the war of teething and getting the bugs out with wing compressibilty issues and those inline Allison engines, but yes, the final variants, a great plane.
Lockheed innovation always cutting edge in the field of aviation.
Not in this case. Later? Yes. P38 was a dog, and not in the good sense of the word
@@w8stral carb icing means no carb heat. Student pilots know this.
@@lawrencetomlinson761 And relevance is??? None.
LT Olds made this plane a true legend!
I was lucky enough to be at the U.S. Air Forces 50th anniversary air show at Nellis AFB and got to see the P38 in its glory. I've witnessed many impressive fighter aircraft flights over the decades but this was the most impressive. It looked as if it was accelerating in a climb, something only modern fighters like the F15 were supposed to be capable of.
I think it’s the most beautiful aircraft ever made.
Didn't know Kelly Johnson designed it... what an incredible designer he was indeed... the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird just to name a couple more
He was indeed.
Kelly Johnson was Lockheeds poster boy. They always make it seem he did everything. The picture of Kelly with the Electra is nice but my great Uncle Hall Hibbard designed it along with the P-38 with Kellys help. Check out who filed the Patents for both those planes. Hibbard is rarely if ever given credit. Many contribute to any aircraft design, Kelly was an excellent designer but he didn't do it all by himself! W.G.H / Hibbard.
My great uncle was one of the first guys to figure out how to pilot this thing
Lazy video with no answer to the title
Can you make a video about the p38 please?
You didn't even give the canned answer to the question you posed in the title. Let alone go in to any remote amount of detail.
Loved this plane!
So, Smithsonian, you're not going to tell us what made it great?
Engineering magic ✨
Magic
@@xx_insert_cool_username_he6876 probably a retractable turkey baster with two egg shaped leather turkey baster fluid reservoirs in the mid fuselage. Both reservoirs powered bya specially trained airman who can squeeze them real hard when the pilot signals him to.
@@jukeboxhero1649 with liberty infused fuel
@@xx_insert_cool_username_he6876 yes, throbbing piston power made from American steel dug from the hard earth of Minnesota.
Wow! All those machine shop videos and very few safety glasses.
All that machine shop footage and little technical information.
Yep, war is dangerous.
This is War, not kindergarten!
@@samiam619 Which is why you need safety glasses... because war is dangerous...
If you are a civilian, don't bother arguing with the logic.
The P-38 was the most successful USAAF fighter in the Pacific War. It served with four separate air forces, spread out from Australia to Alaska. The most successful American Ace of the Second World War, Major Richard Ira Bong, scored all 40 of his victories flying the P-38 Lightning over the Pacific.
Silly name... Ira 😉
Tony Bong actually, I think Maj. Bong got his first few kills in a P-40, which was a MUCH harder job...
@James Kratzer
Wartime History
Bong was then flown overseas as a passenger aboard a B-24 Liberator from the west coast via Hickam Field to Australia. Four P-38 pilots were crammed into the nose: Carl G. Planck, Jr., Norman D. "Sneezy" Hyland, Walter Markey and Richard Ira "Dick" Bong. Upon arrival Bong and Planck were assigned to the newly formed P-38 fighter unit, the 17th Provisional Fighter Squadron. By November 1942 they were transferred to the 9th Fighter Squadron “The Flying Knights” operatig the P-40 Warhawk who were famous from their aerial defense of Darwin during March 1942 until August 1942.
The 49th Fighter Group. 9th Fighter Squadron was one of two units in the 5th Air Force selected for conversion to the P-38 Lightning. Planck and Bong were among a group of new pilots in the South-West Pacific Area (SWPA) with experience flying the twin engine fighter. They began helping American fighter pilots convert from the P-40 Warhawk and P-39 Airacobra to the P-38 Lightning.
Bong's Lightnings
During his three combat tours in the South-West Pacific Area (SWPA), Bong flew or was assigned to several P-38 Lightnings:
P-38F 42-12653 piloted by Bong January 8, 1943 ultimate fate unknown, likely scrapped.
P-38J "Marge" 42-103993 assigned to Bong and named after his wife. On March 22, 1944 crashed piloted by Tom Malone.
P-38J "Marge" 42-104380 during 1945 crashed on a checkout flight over Manlia Bay.
Aerial Victory Claims
Bong was credited with a a total of 40 aerial victories and was the U. S. Army Air Force (USAAF) highest scoring pilot during World War II. All of his aerial victory claims were made piloting the P-38 Lightning over New Guinea, New Britain and the Philippines.
Richard I. Bong - P-38 Pilot 49th Fighter Group, 9th Fighter Squadron & 5th Fighter Command Highest Scoring American Ace of World War II
Richard Bong's life story.
This is a reprint of Roger McGrath's "Sins of Omission" column on Richard Bong. In September I was in Superior and visited the museum where many Bong mementoes are on display,
He was an all-American boy who became an American hero in WWII. Born in 1920 to a father who, at the age of five, had immigrated to the United States with his family from Sweden and an American born mother of Irish, Scottish, and English descent, Dick Bong was reared on farm a few miles west of Poplar and some fifteen miles southeast of Superior, Wisconsin. He had eight brothers and sisters. His family could have posed for Norman Rockwell. Bong began working in the fields and driving farm machinery at a young age. He stared into the sky at every plane that flew overhead, and was enamored with the deeds of Charles Lindbergh, who had grown up just over the state line in Minnesota.
At Central High in Superior he played on the baseball team with one of my uncles and in his spare time hunted and fished. For his 4H project he planted a windbreak of trees on the family farm. His sister Geraldine, still going strong at 87, told me that he was the best big brother anyone could ask for. In 1938 he began his studies at Superior State Teachers College and enrolled in the Civilian Pilot Training Program. Three years later he enlisted in the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program. Bong excelled in both programs and by early January 1942, just a month after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, he had both his wings and a commission as a second lieutenant.
Bong was assigned to the 49th Fighter Squadron at Hamilton Field, located on the shores of San Francisco Bay near the Marin County town of San Rafael. At Hamilton, he was trained in the powerful, twin-engine Lockheed P-38 Lightning, which he would fly throughout the war. Like most fighter pilots, Bong had a wild hair. He got reprimanded by Gen. George Kenney in June 1942 for looping the Golden Gate Bridge, buzzing Market Street in San Francisco, and blowing wash off a clothesline in Oakland. “If you didn’t want to fly down Market Street,” said Kenney, “I wouldn’t have you in my Air Force, but you are not to do it anymore and I mean what I say.” Kenney later remarked, “We needed kids like this lad.”
By September, Bong was in Darwin, Australia, but was soon moved to a more forward airfield in Port Moresby, New Guinea, which afforded him the opportunity to fly with and learn from decorated aces Charles O’Sullivan and Thomas Lynch. In December Bong got his first aerial victories, shooting down two Japanese fighters during the Battle of Buna-Gona. For his actions he received the first of his many decorations, a Silver Star. He shot down two more Japanese planes on January 7, 1943 and the next day got another to become an ace. During March he got four more kills and was promoted to 1st lieutenant. In April he downed his tenth Japanese plane to become a double ace and be awarded the Air Medal. He got another in June and then on July 26 in several minutes of furious action over Lae he blew four Japanese fighters out of the sky. He was awarded the Army’s second highest decoration, the Distinguished Service Cross.
By the time he went on leave during the late fall of 1943, Bong had 21 aerial victories and was wearing captain’s bars. Back in Wisconsin, at a Superior State Teachers College homecoming, he met the girl of his dreams, Marge Vattendahl. When he returned to New Guinea in January 1944, he had his ground crew decorate the nose of his P-38 with a large photograph of Marge. It was the last thing seen by many a Japanese pilot. By early April he had added four more kills to his total and then on April 12 he shot down three Japanese planes to reach 27 and surpass Eddie Rickenbacker’s WWI record of 26. General Kenney promoted Bong to major and pulled him off the line. Rickenbacker messaged Bong, “Just received the good news that you are the first one to break my record in WWI by bringing down 27 planes in combat, as well as your promotion, so justly deserved. I hasten to offer my sincere congratulations . . . .”
Bong spent the next several months on bond tours in the United States and did not return to the Southwest Pacific until September. He was assigned duty as a gunnery instructor and, although allowed to go on combat missions, ordered not to seek out the enemy. Nonetheless, Bong not only continued to shoot enemy planes out of the sky but did so with his greatest frequency ever. During October, November, and December he got 11 kills, including three in the Battle for Leyte Gulf. On December 12 at Tacloban airfield on Leyte, Gen. Douglas MacArthur awarded Bong the Medal of Honor.
With 40 aerial victories and the MOH, Bong was ordered home. In February 1945 he married Marge in Superior. They honeymooned in California where Bong undertook a new assignment-as a test pilot for Lockheed. On August 6 he had just lifted off from Lockheed’s Burbank runway in the P-80 Shooting Star jet fighter when a fuel pump malfunctioned. Bong ejected but was too low for his parachute to deploy. The ace of aces was 24 years old
Tony Bong I stand (sit) corrected.
Most people also don't know that Dick Bong teamed with Tom Lynch for awhile, until Lynch was lost in combat. Also, Bong had a long-running friendly rivalry with Tom McGuire for the top slot, and the final tally was Bong 40, McGuire 38 confirmed air-to-Air kills. Charley Macdonald was third, with 36, which made the top 3 Army Air Force aces all P-38 drivers.
Bong and McGuire had that friendly feud going all the way to when Gen. Kenney rotated Bong home. McGuire was grounded until Bong got his Medal in D.C., then Kenney turned Tommy loose.
Tommy was out hunting scalps The at he got thoroughly bounced. He went to help a fellow pilot who got in trouble after they went after some Zeroes and discovered they were instead picking on one of the few top IJN aces still alive off the Home Islands.
Tommy held onto his drop tanks, he let his speed drop below 250, and he tried to turn with a Zero.
He broke ALL THREE of his top rules of fighting Zeroes, stalled at low altitude, and was still pulling it out when he went in.
Thirty-eight confirmed Air-to-Air kills don't mean diddly when you break all the rules...
The highest scoring American aces flew p-38’s in the Pacific. Charles Lindbergh clandestinely flew the p-38 in the Pacific to figure out the boost and mixture settings, in order to extend the range and performance of the p-38. He also tallied up several kills while doing so.
Prove it.
@@steveconkey7362 Charles Lindbergh knew a great deal about extracting the most performance from the least amount of fuel. He chose to help the war effort.
He may have downed aircraft but I can't prove it.
Helping the pilots learn/trust running their engines OVER SQUARE (low RPM using high boost) and leaning is documented in books and some video footage that has been shown on History Channel.
I read he also worked with USMC land based F4U squadrons on coming up with better fighting tactics and also figured out they could carry a much heavier bomb load than previously thought.
@@steveconkey7362Battle Stations P-38 episode. Witness testimony.
Gotta love the stupid added-in crash sound.
Patrick: Glad to see I'm not the only one!
Stuff like that drives me mad, it's as though the filmmaker/editor expects an uninformed audience.
one can say that only the US is rich enough to consider the P-38 twin body and engine design into mass production at that time, its just not cost efficient for lots of countries in europe
This is a true fact.
How you arent telling us how the P-38 flew higher and faster than its rivals... you had one job smithsonian, one job...
Reported as spam and misleading.
Florian Bösch it doesn’t fly faster than all rivals, late war props and jets can out run it
Other sources have said it ran out of fuel due to a stackup in the landing pattern.
I actually heard a mix of both and assumed the flight may have been successful if it could have been landed when it initially arrived.
The carburetors iced.
Beautiful plane,I built one from scratch and it only costed me about $15 back in the 80s !
Love the P38
A plane with a minimum speed of 360 miles per hour would be hard to land.
Good catch!
point is on fastest speed at least 360, or more
No way try a a10.
Yes
Legend 👍✈️
The enemy called it the fork tailed devil
No! US propaganda called it the Fork-tailed devil.
I love the P38
Me too bro! For reasons unknown, it rocks my world more than any other plane - period.
japan didn't .
Post the full epi of that and I'll turn off my ad blocker!
Well one of those planes shot down Admiral Yamamoto in the South Pacific blowing the decision making of the Japanese high command.
Great plane
So? The Spitfire did for Rommel.
Curtiss answered that call; XP-37, P-40.
Kelly Johnson with Lockheed had the P-38 and with turbosuoercharging the Allison V1710 proved she was just as good as the Merlin V1650 if not better.
"the pilot escapees with nothing dead but his career in the military"
For those wondering what happened, it worked.
I thought I had read somewhere before that the P-38 was originally conceived to intercept bombers, and that was why it had 2 engines ..... to enable it to climb to altitude quickly and shoot down incoming bombers.
One of my old History Professors had a "Fork Tailed Devil"...crash in his yard as a small boy in Germany. He said he saw it coming down
Years ago as a young community journalist iI profile a crazy guy who was trying to rebuild a P-38 in his house. His wife moved out so he had a place to himself. She left him over his hobby! He had plane parts stored everywhere in this house including his garage and I think he has storage space somewhere nearby. He was trying to rebuild the thing screw by screw. He was crazy obviously. This was about 45 years ago. I'm gonna dig out that clip and see if I can find out whatever happened to this guy.
Lindbergh taught the Air Corps how to wring out that plane
Kelly built good planes
Skunk Works
in simulator i made few huge craters into ground when going to steep dive and turning aircraft into immovable brick
If you notice the p 38 has the beginnings of the stealth design Kelly Johnson was a aeronautical genius he not only was outside the box he was in all dimensional plains in between the box I'm not smart enough to say enough about the man
The man was definitely ahead of his times, unbelievably innovative.
My favorite fighter of WW 2
One design stood out. Do you think that because it was Kelly Johnson's that it might have something to do with it. (And I proudly point out that there was a Hibbard on the design team too,lol).
My uncle flew these in the Pacific and they save his bacon more than once. He loved that plane.
@01:09 Kelly Johnson looks a bit like the front of that Lockheed plane he's staring at.
Woman
Charles Lindbergh went to the Pacific as an “observer” and wound up flying combat missions in the P-38. While there he demonstrated how he could improve the range of the aircraft through running a different mixture.
Actually what Lindbergh showed them that running the engines at low rpm and higher manifold pressure saved gas and improved range.
The tech people from Allison thought it would ruin the engines. Opening up and inspection revealed otherwise.
De Havilland Mosquito
Why did the RAF take out the Superchargers?
400 to 230 and you wounder why it did bad. Money over life.
Felt like the video ended prematurely
Copying the DeHavilland Mosquito would have saved time and money with similar flight characteristics plus It was able to carry a bomb load with some even having a 6lb. field cannon installed.
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so which one came out first the NG black widow or the LM lighting
the p38 by four years.
Just going to point out that Grumman, Northop, Martin, and Lockheed were all separate companies. They didn't merge until a half a century later.
More ads please. Just a little too much video.
*Faltered? Engines falter when they have no gas in them. The 38 was on fumes when the Air Controller wouldn't give him priority and made him join the pattern and...Kersplat.*
The video said they iced up and that fits with me. Anyhow
ive read both, but whats the answer? low or outta gas or not? where was venturi heat then, usual icing is not a problem at the end of a flight. it happens when climbing or establishing altitude.
Good catch. Most simply say it was carburetor icing. In reality, it was traffic control which led to low fuel, which led to lean mixture, which led to icing.
thanks david....they didnt even notify the tower jock he was coming, so they couldnt roll him under the bus. hed stopped for gas twice and still beat hughes racers unrefueled record. many think of the 38 as a fighter plane, it wasnt. it was a high speed interceptor. which is why kelly installed the government mandated 20 mil. to get to incoming bombers screamin fast, and then bust em out of he air.
@@Imnotyourdoormat It's SOP, in light aircraft, anyway, to apply carb heat on downwind when landing.
Are you telling me that they did not have carb heat in 1936 ??
The turbocharger provides carb heat when it is engaged. The problem is the turbo engages when the throttle is pushed beyond 2/3rds power. The XP-38 was circling around the field at low power for so long that there was no heat going into the carb.
Kool
I thought that because of high altitude problems, the P38's were used more in the Pacific Theater, where ops against the Japanese were at much lower altitudes
The P-38 was a success in pretty much every theater of the war it was employed in outside of the bombing campaign in Western Europe. The reason it didn't work out well there was because early models were pushed into high-altitude combat before its problems affecting high-altitude combat had been solved. The US Air command was committed to high altitude bombing, a type of combat to which most German machines were well suited, which exposed the shortcomings of those early P-38 models. Ironically the crash mentioned in this video was a major factor because it set the P-38 program back by at least a year or two. Had the later P-38 models such as the "J" and "L" been employed earlier in Western Europe it probably would have been a different story. Those models corrected the high-altitude problems and were overall much better planes. However, by the time they started arriving in number in England the decision had already been made to use the P-51D in the role, to which it was also quite well suited.
P-38 was ordered as an intercepter, not a fighter.
The P, stood for Pursuit.
That’s great. And the F in F-111 and F-117 stood for fighter but they were both bombers.
@@kellyBorgman - The "Pursuit" designation applied equally to both interceptors and fighters. This per Wikipedia: "Lockheed designed the P-38 in response to a February 1937 specification from the United States Army Air Corps. Circular Proposal X-608 was a set of aircraft performance goals authored by First Lieutenants Benjamin S. Kelsey and Gordon P. Saville for a twin-engine, high-altitude "interceptor" having "the tactical mission of interception and attack of hostile aircraft at high altitude."
Kelly Johnson!
Not as agile as a lot of its rivals, but just as fast, if not faster. Four .50 Caliber Machine Guns and two 20MM Cannons.
One 20mm.
.
Bob Smith I thought it was two.
@@podsmpsg1 Nope. One.
.
Bob Smith thanks.
@@podsmpsg1 No problem.
I heard Aliens designed it....at least what the History channel taught me anyhow.
No, they stole the plans from our Earth-born Lizard men.
The plane had a few teething problems at the start, but proved to be excellent for it's intended roles.
The Aircraft that killed Admiral Yamamoto in a payback suprise attack.
With the help of some good intelligence of course.
😉😉😉😈😈😈
The plane was essentially a pile of garbage compared to its contemporaries only suited for long over water flights where 2 engines were required.
@@w8stral l wouldn't call it a pile of garbage.
But it was not as maneuverable as a zero or mustang.
But could carry a reasonable bomb load and was reliable and heavily armed.
😈😈😈😈😈
@@markjmaxwell9819 I would take 2 airplanes in place of the single P38 and its two engines every day of the week. It was slow, unmaneuverable, could not dive, could climb like a bat out of hell as it was way overpowered, but otherwise, had nothing going for it other than for long over water flights where it shined.
@@w8stral l have inspected one in the flesh.
Lolllll better than a P40
😂😂😂😂
@@markjmaxwell9819 What the Hell is NOT better than the P40?
So how did it that? 🤔
🇺🇸🌨🌨☁️🌨☁️☁️🌨☁️🌨🌧🇻🇮🇻🇮🇻🇮🇻🇮🗺🗺🇻🇮🇻🇮🇻🇮🇻🇮🇻🇮🇻🇮🇻🇮🗺🗺🗺🗺🇻🇮🇻🇮🌧🗺🗺🗺🗺🗺🇻🇮🇻🇮🇻🇮🇻🇮🇻🇮🇻🇮🇻🇮🇻🇮🇺🇸thanks from John Robert Bruffett Junior of United States of America !!!!!!!
How well did this aircraft do in Europe and the Pacific?
It shot down Yamamoto and Richard Bong, our number one ace, shot down forty Japanese aircraft with the P-38.
Had trouble in Europe
Luftwaffe pilots called it the “forked-tail devil”.
Low diving speed made it inferior to german fighters. Thus it's role was changed to photo recon and strafing.
@@andreaskolling3749 Were in Europe by 1943/44 the US Photo-recon units change most of they P-38 to Mosquito and Spitfires and as for strafing there where many allied aircraft that did that role all equal or better then P-38 according to those who flew them.
1 pilot for 2 planes
Built in Burbank California ✔
Top 1 plane fighter, ( ange des cieux )
I used to live very close to Kelly Johnson Drive in Valencia, CA
John Robert Bruffett Junior 🇺🇸 awesome American 🇺🇸 plane!
was getting interested then... guess they ran out of film LOL
This looks like the Hughes xf11
You barely explained why it was so fast..
Radical.
You could have shared more details..
And it was the plane that killed Yamamoto
And furthermore I also counselled pilots.
I got a toy version of that from Cancun
Isn't this the predecessor to the a-10 thunderbolt or warthog?
Drake Kay The P- 47 Thunderbolt from WW2 is the plane that associated with today’s A-10. It was a dual purpose heavy fighter that could take heavy damage and was also used as a ground support aircraft that could inflict devastating damage with it’s Eight 50 caliber machine guns and 5 inch rockets as well as the ability to carry 2500 lbs worth of bombs.
@@jasonstein460 I would suggest the Douglas AE1-Skyraider would also fall into that category
Blue2 P-38 Pacific Fighter Pilot 171 missions interview:
@
Poorly titled for sure.
Slightly misleading title
Seems like there’s more to this story.
Smithsonian stopped putting full length documentary's on UA-cam like that is going to make people buy the channel on cable!?!?
That's it?
The P-38 was hands over the P-51.
sirwilliam51 I AM a P-38 fan, but I have to disagree.
Lightning was a superior bird in the Pacific due to that second engine and the gun system.
However, in 8th Fighter Command, at high altitude out of England, due to deficiencies in cockpit environments and, prior to the J-25, model, the lack of the dive flap, the P-38 was WAY behind the -51 as an escort.
But give me a -38 against any A6M, any time, anywhere. Or any other IJN fighter...
That’s is????
wowww that was an extremely underwhelming video👎🚫🆘️
Not as underwhelming as your vapid attempt at wit.
@@videomaniac108 🚫 No attempt at wit nor wisdom intended Jim..mere comment of a punter having just watched the posting...could do better🚫
How did the P38 compare to a Mosquito?
it did not in many the roles the sheared except maybe the role of pure day fighter role everything else the Mosquito out performed the P-38
it didn't
@@smitbar11 Different roles or one was superior?
@@daniellastuart3145 Mosquito was a light bomber
These two aircraft are very similar in performance. Mosquito is listed as one mile per hour faster - but that doesn't mean anything one way or the other. They had about the same pay load and range. Their missions were different in that the Mosquito was an Intruder and the Lightening a Fighter. The Lightening could probably out maneuver the Mosquito but the version of the Mosquito with the guns had a heavier armament. The Mosquito's Rolls Royce Merlin's were rated at 1710 hp where as the Lightenings Allison's were rated at 1600.
The thing is, all these aircraft were produced in different versions and these would have different performance characteristics.
.
It ran out of gas...
The pickel fork devil
The Germans called it the Forked Tail Devil.
William Mawk I heard that they never called it that and that it was made up
@@jonalarcon8564 I have heard the Forked Tail Devil name several times on P-38 documentaries that is where I got the name. But, you could be right, there are a lot of false beliefs.
William Mawk cool. It sure was a beautiful tho, Kelly Johnson was a man way ahead of his time , this guy I worked with in castaic work for the B 2 program his name was Chris creeland said every one in the program loved Kelly Johnson
If it was so good how come it got shot down in droves by BF 109s and FW 190s?
The mossie was faster and more adjile plus the mark 18 had a six inch anti tank weapon under the fuselage to ok then,, look it up and 1134, were build in Canada to . With Canada,,NZ ,,USA and Aussie stands to
Not in the same league as the DH 98 De Havilland Mosquito !!!
The P38 was the highest scoring twin engine fighter of the war. All P38's could carry more weight of bombs than Mossy fighter bombers.
see BAE Mosquito page
The engine was not an inline. It was a V12. Refer to the US model number for that engine. You would think that these words were written some english person.
@basil punton. The Brits have the same definition. Inline engines are i4, i5, i6 and i8. Though a V12 can still be referred to as an inline engine:- noun: inline engine
a type of internal combustion engine used chiefly in aircraft, having its cylinders arranged in a row.
In aviation when comparing a V12 to a Radial engine, the V12 is considered an inline engine compared to a Radial 12 cylinder.
There were two types of aircraft engines in WWII Inline and Radial. Inline does not mean straight like a straight 6 it means the cylinders are in a line but there might be more than one bank of them like the "V" style inline engines.
Simply the US airforce uses I for inline engines and V for v engines, and R for radials. This is the correct way. Not the way that people who do not understand differences claim that v' s are inline. Are you all claiming that the US airforce is wrong?
@@basilpunton5702 No, I am claiming you are wrong,
Back in 2000 I worked on a documentary about German night fighters. I asked them what really scared them , they said Mustangs and Mosquitoes. One Mosquito shot down was worth two kills.
They called it "Moskitoschreck" (Mosquito Terror).
Don’t waste your time watching this
"Super" turbocharger? Really? Differing how from a turbocharger? Hype wastes time & bandwidth. Took USAAC & Lockheed a while to get past compressibility effects, and go to one-piece elevator. Then it lived up to potential, surviving steep dives.
Turbo supercharger is actually a correct term, meaning a supercharger driven off the exhaust gases by a turbine. Nowadays we typically we just shorten it to turbocharger and leave supercharger to refer to mechanically driven superchargers. Super turbochargers though? Not so sure about that one.
No need to be pedantic about the obvious, y'know. Thought I was being obvious there.
Now I wonder if it had both. It did have a very conspicuous turbocharger on top of each boom.
Answers why, not how...
Was this on Smithsonian plus? I just unsubscribed because of the lack of new airplane content like new air warriors.
My grandfather had experience with the P38s in Australia. They had a bad reputation amongst pilots who he would say 'lost confidence' in the aircraft as a result of pilots not being able to pull out of high speed dives. There were much better aircraft than the P38 during WWII.
Yep. "High-speed compressibility stall" I think it was called. I think they added some sort of air brake or slats to counteract this in later models.
An all male designing team will trigger feminazis
That badass airplane designer It was An unsung hero to me ! God bleess him