Interesting comment from P-38 pilot I talked to today -- for SAPP folks

[Brooke]

At a WWII fighter-pilot panel discussion today at The Museum of Flight in Seattle, I got to talk to a P-38 pilot.  Stanley P. Richardson, Jr. of the 55th Fighter Group flew 126 missions in P-38's.  He did a lot of bomber escort as well as ground attack, was in the first group of US fighters to fly over Berlin, flew patrol over the beaches of Normandy during D-Day, and even did some level bombing as led by a "droop snoot" model of the P-38.

Stan Richardson and crew next to his plane:


Mr. Richardson loved the P-38 and felt that it was a wonderful fighter.  There have been a lot of stories about problems with the P-38 in the European theater, specifically problems with engine reliability at high altitudes.  I asked Mr. Richardson about that.  He did not feel that there were problems with the Allisons or their turbochargers at high altitude, but that the main problem with the P-38 at altitude was only one thing:  poor cockpit heating.  He said that the P-38 had a small electric heater in the cockpit, and at high altitudes, the cockpit temperature would get down to -30 deg. F or lower.  Later, when they upgraded the heaters in P-38's, it improved things by 10 degrees F, but that's still extremely cold.  He said they'd wear outfits as warm as they could manage, but still, the extreme cold would cause problems on the long high-altitude missions, adding a great deal to physical fatigue.

He also flew 24 missions in P-51's.  He liked the P-51 -- by contrast he said that the heater in the P-51 was such that you could fly it even at high altitudes with nothing more than a light jacket.  But he thought the P-38 was superior in a dogfight and better for ground attack.  Go, SAPP!

[Hoarach]

 

I wonder how he thought it performed in certain situations such as low speed handling.   

[Saxman]

Seems a number of aircraft had teething problems with cockpit heaters. That was one of the things that led the XF4F-3 to initially be bypassed in favor of the F2A.

[Guppy35]

A P38 pilot I talked to in the past, said he used to wrap old YANK magazines around his legs as insulation to ward off the cold in the cockpit.  Thanks for posting that Brooke

[Brooke]

I wonder how he thought it performed in certain situations such as low speed handling.   

All the pilots I've heard comment on it have thought that the P-38 handled wonderfully at low speed (or actually at all speeds except in compressibility), so I didn't ask him about that.

I did ask him about compressibility.  He said that they kept that in mind and tried to stay out of compressibility.  He didn't seem to consider it to be a major drawback.

[Bear76]

Good stuff Brooke. now HTC will have to model the heater

[The Fugitive]

Good stuff Brooke. now HTC will have to model the heater

Most of us SAPP guys have the new heaters already, we even named them..... Engine#1, and engine#2   

[Shuffler]

Thanks Brooke!

Did he mention anything about the blender?

[daddog]

 
Thanks for posting about it.

[MjTalon]

 
Wonderful read. Explains why alot of 38 units were in the PTO in later parts of the war.

 

[Widewing]

I've known Stan Richardson for years. Great guy, completely candid. He contributed to a P-38 piece I wrote with Dr. Kopp.

Stan was an instructor at a P-38 RTU. His specialty was single-engine aerobatics. Many students had heard that if you lost and engine on the P-38, it was a death trap. Stan knew otherwise and would spend hours showing new P-38 pilots what the Lightning could do on one engine.

Stan wrote:
"The airplane was a "dream" on single-engine. While I was instructing in P-38's at Muroc AAF, on occasion the instructor and three students (four ship flight) would each feather the right propeller (remember, only a single generator, and that on the left engine) for a "tail chase" which included loops, slow and barrel rolls, and just generally having a good time. The exercise was to instill confidence in the pilots ability to control the aircraft on one engine. My area of "expertise" while instructing at Muroc was single-engine demo's in a piggyback P-38. Take-off on two engines, feather the right engine shortly after take-off. Climb to 10,000'. Demonstrate various emergency procedures (landing gear and flap extension), propeller operation in fixed pitch (simulating electrical failure), high speed stalls, a loop, a roll or two, then return to the airfield for landing on one engine. Make a typical fighter approach on the deck, pitch out, drop the landing gear, then some flaps, finally full flaps and plunk it onto the runway.

For a short period in my life flying P-38's I had as much time on one engine as I did on two. Keep in mind that most of my P-38 flying occurred just after my 20th birthday. Some of my P-38 combat time was while I was a 20 year old snot-nosed kid. No brains, lotsa luck. Gad! I love that bird..... "



My regards,

Widewing

[MjTalon]

Thanks WW for the wonderful read. I'm curious is to more information on maneuvering the 38 with one engine. Any references you would recommend sir?


 

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

Captain Richardson is a great guy. At one point, I must have had 200 emails from him. We had a pretty good email group going there, with maybe 15 pilots in it. At one time, it included Stan, JB Popnoe, Ken Lloyd, Art Heiden, Bill Safarik, Don Rheimer, and nearly a dozen others.

There was a time when, if you knew where to look and how to act, you could get hooked up with dozens of pilots. In one twelve month period, I think I came up with about one new email address a week. Those were the days.

WW, if you speak with Art or Stan, tell them Alan said hello, and God Bless.

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

By the way, Stan used to make the trek over to Tillamook NAS museum on a fairly regular basis. There you'll find a P-38, painted as a salute to Jeff Ethell's father Erv Ethell, called "Tangerine". If you should ever be there, and see an older gentleman leaned up against that P-38, with a wistful look in his eye, and one hand caressing its curves, it's probably Stan. His wife will tell you "that's the other woman".

[Brooke]

Thanks, Widewing!  Excellent post.