Two ace P-38

[Greebo]

Thank you to Lyric1 for finding me the info for this skin.

The 39th Fighter Squadron based near Port Moresby in New Guinea converted from the P-39 to the P-38 in early 1943. As squadron ID all their new aircraft were decorated with a set of white shark teeth on each nacelle and blue spinners. Later on eyes, black lips and red mouths were added to the nacelle art. This particular aircraft, number 20, was flown by Captain Curran "Jack" Jones and he shot down four of his five kills with it. When Jones was posted Stateside in mid-1943 it became the mount of another five kill ace, the Squadron CO Major Charles W King. Some time between July and September he had checkered tails painted onto his aircraft, presumably for easy identification by his pilots. In December he too was posted home, just as the squadron was transitioning to the P-47D.

[lyric1]

 

[Shuffler]

Very nice......

[whiteman]

Looking great!

[oboe]

Superb.   That bottom pic shows why the shark mouth looks so right on the early '38.

[Devil 505]

Wow, what a beauty!

[Nefarious]

Amazing work!

Really shows your incredible attention to detail and sets a new bar for P-38 submissions! The finest P-38 skin in game, easily.

[Volron]

The difference in the updated model shows.  I can't imagine how many monitor's you'd have punched a hole through to get her to look what would be considered bad, as best.

[lyric1]

Just as a side note the 39th carried on with the checker tails and some shark mouths into Korea with the F-86.





 

[Guppy35]

The red outline to the star and bar was not used in the PTO for obvious reasons.  It was just the white bar added behind the star in the blue circle.

[Greebo]

Thanks for the correction Guppy. The photo I have of this aircraft shows dark borders around the white bars on the markings. The blue circle part of these markings appear to be the same diameter as their white stars and my initial assumption was that there was a red border outside this that is not discernible against the camo paint. What seems more likely to me now though that the ground crews first added white bars and then blue borders to the original 1942 markings, but without adding an expanded blue border to the circle.

I've already submitted this skin so I can't change it at the moment. But I'll correct it for the next skin batch.

[lyric1]

The red outline to the star and bar was not used in the PTO for obvious reasons.  It was just the white bar added behind the star in the blue circle.

It became obvious after enough fratricide shootings of pilots firing at flashes of red. There are examples of Japanese front aircraft with the red outline though.
Here is just a few.





















https://pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/a-20/43-9113.html

[Ack-Ack]

Can the pilots in the P-38 be reskinned?  In game the pilots look they are wearing RAF tropic or desert uniforms.

[oboe]

Can the pilots in the P-38 be reskinned?  In game the pilots look they are wearing RAF tropic or desert uniforms.

It doesn't appear so.  Although the skin submission form still lists files dude1.bmp and dude2.bmp as optional submissions, there is no effect on the pilot figure when I include these files in my working folder for a new skin.

My guess is the submission form is out-of-date for the new P-38s, and the new pilot model bmp(s) are not exposed to the skinner when we save a default skin.

[800nate800]

on my favorite roundels...