how tough was the P-38?

[Citabria]

so tough that it survived the tremendous forces of a glacier for over 40 years and is now being restored to flying condition.

   

I've seen pictures of p38's with half their tails shot off, 37mm holes in the wings and numerous accounts of severe damage sustained... yet the p38 kept flying and got their pilot home.

the p-38 pilots loved headons! they didnt have the problem of their wings and etc falling off from a few hits.

a p38 has even colided head on with a 109 turning the 109 into a wingless twisted wreck... the p38 returned home and belly landed.

did you know the p-38 had 2 radiators for each engine?

[ 07-14-2001: Message edited by: Citabria ]

[Tac]

Preach on Cit! We're with you!    

[Naudet]

1st cit, a glacier is a good place to hide something from the dmg cause by enviromental forces like wind, rain etc. look at the mammoth in sibiria.

And stories about planes coming home after incredible dmg are there for every type of plane.

He are some i found while reading the histories of JG26 and III./JG54

A fw190 collided with a spit in midair, losing the outer quarter of the the wing and the aileron, pilot had no prob to fly home and land it safety, the spit fell apart and crashed.

Another one was hit by 20+ 0.5 cals, coming home with the pilot not even noticing them and landing back at base. There they discovered that 3 0.5 had torn through one prob blade, 2 were stop by the pilots seat armor etc.

In Op "Bodenplatte" a D9 pilot had the bad luck to collided with a tree when flying in low level. Cutting of last 4 meters of the tree. returned home with the plane vibrating a bit, when landed, i was found that each prob blade was "a bit" shorter than before.

and so on and so on


P.S. i agree the vertikal stabilizer of the P38 falls of if u only look angry at him, this should be fixed

[Citabria]

warren bodies book on the p38 contains some interesting pictures.

1 of them shows a p38 that returned from a straffing mission after coliding with a telephone poll

another shows a p38 that landed after coliding head on with a halifax BOMBER! the halifax' vert stab was embeded in the left wing of the p38

tac I'm sure has massive amounts of pictures of p38s returning with rediculous amounts of damage.

[Citabria]

Originally posted by Naudet:
1st cit, a glacier is a good place to hide something from the dmg cause by enviromental forces like wind, rain etc. look at the mammoth in sibiria.

my point about the glacier is the density of the p38 is very high. there was also a b17 that ditched with the p38's. they found the b17 but the glacier had crushed it and torn it apart. the p38 was incredibly well built

[chunder']

Not trying to piss in your wheaties, but the reason why the B17 was damaged while the P38 was not is due to the fact that the B17 didn't fill up with snow/ice completely but the 38 did.

[Citabria]

and why did it fill up completely with ice/snow?

 

[AKDejaVu]

Cit,

A glacier is a cumulative effect.  The farther down the plane is, the more pressure it would see.  If it were like 30 or 40 feet down.. it would be crushed.  80 feet is enough to turn ice into jello... thus causing the glacier to flow.

Take a trip to Alaska some time and learn tons of useless glacier trivia

AKDejaVu

[Citabria]

the p38 was under 268 feet of ice. it did not turn to jello

 

the b17 they located next to it was a twisted mess

 

[MrRiplEy]

First of all, the B17 might have been crushed on landing already..

Secondly, the reason those planes were found in that depth is that heavy objects tend to melt their way through ice. Hang a weight hanging from a block of ice with a metal string.. the string will melt its way through the ice (also the block of ice will freeze again being left intact after the wire melted all the way through.)

So taking this into consideration, the ice was probably not crushing the planes THAT much unless it moved. More likely they were floating to the bottom of the glacier in the small melted bubble they created in the ice.

[Citabria]

my point is the Aces High P-38 damage model is to flimsy

the p38 should be much more resiliant in Aces High than it is currently

[bolillo_loco]

the B-17 was not damaged that bad, it looks like a normal belly landing. I have seen several pictures myself.

I would have to agree with the person above who stated that the 38 filled up with water from melting or what ever and it froze, thus it was not crushed like the b-17 was. its kinda like filling a bottle with water, put the cap back on and then drop it to 20,000ft below the ocean, it will not be crushed, but do that with an empty glass bottle and it will be crushed. maybe because of the size of the B-17 that is why it did not fill up with ice?? who knows but god?

cit, give up on the 38 here. it will give you more peace and serinity here because it is way too anti P-38. play another sim

[Tac]

why would I have pics of badly damaged 38's? They ALL came home UNDAMAGED and with lotsa kills!      

[Bodhi]

Citabria,

FYI, ask Tac to see the photos that he took of the 38 tail I showed him.  The bottom line on that portion of the aircraft, it is the weakest link in the system.  Tac was amazed when I showed him what the main attachpoints in the horizontal consisted of.  As for Glacier Girl, it was not as well preserved as originally believed.  The spar was cracked and twisted, due to the movement of the ice.  Along with a multiude of other problems that are shown on their web site.  Another lot to keep in mind is also the amount of time involved in that restoration.  Anything can be rebuilt, ask Tac to show you the pics of what he saw of the original Corsair we rebuilt.  It hit the side of a mountain and broke into bits, literally.  We also have a 38 that is being rebuilt after its colision with a mountain, and that is worse.  Opinions on this subject are always going to be there, but make sure you are well aware of the facts before forming an opinion is all I ask.

[SFRT - Frenchy]

Originally posted by Citabria:


my point about the glacier is the density of the p38 is very high. there was also a b17 that ditched with the p38's. they found the b17 but the glacier had crushed it and torn it apart. the p38 was incredibly well built

They found a snowman, all pretty and neat. So, the snowman has a bone structure stronger than a B17 and equal as the P38.

Hittler cloned the snowmen and launched them to American B17s. That's why sometimes, while walking in the French countryside you find snowmen from frozenland!!!