P-38 wing vs. a P-51 wing.

[BigCrate]

What are the diffeneces between the P-38 wing and the P-51 wing??? Why could the P-51 reach a higher speed in a dive than the P-38??  I know the P-38 had a thick wing.  Because when the P-38 was designed in the late 30's Lockeeed didn't know about compressibility and the AF demand that the P-38 have range. And Lockheed didn't know a better way to design a plane with range. But to design the wing to carry big gas tanks. And to carry a big gas tank you needed a big wing. I need as much info on the P-51 wing and the P-38 wing yall can give me. I need to know everything about the two.
And if the P-38 was design with a P-51 style wing how do yall think it fly?? Would the climb, turn, and accel. suffer or be helped??
This post something to do with my P-38 FM post. Thinking about modeling a P-38 with a P-51 sytle wing. Hehehe and it won't look like the P-38 kingfisher I don't know how it would look. I know some the purty curves of the 38 would be gone with more anglar lines.


Cw
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[wells]

The P-38 wing is no thicker than the P-51 wing...both are 16% at the root.   The Mustang's wing has it's thickest point a little further back, which makes the leading edge sharper with not such a blunt curve, if you can visualize that?  As such,  air doesn't speed up as much going over the top, so drag is a bit less and maybe critical mach is a bit higher.  Certainly, all that propwash (excess airspeed) doesn't help the critical mach number on the P-38.

[BigCrate]

So the P-51 wing starts a sharp edge and as you move back toward the trailing edge of the wing it the wing gets thicker.
Yeah propwash anit helping none in a P-38.. If a P-38 was designed with a P-51 style wing. How would its performance be??
Besides the fact it could dive faster. I think the climb rate would be improved and it wouldn't bleed E like bandit. But turn would be about the same. But if it retains E better it could hold the Gs in the turn for longer.

Cw
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[bozon]

I think the thing causing the 38 to compress much earlier than the p51 is not the wing but the cockpit's gondola.
also having the elevator just behind it might disturb the airflow over the elevator and causing the lock at high speeds. but i'm not certain about it.

Bozon

[BigCrate]

Early 38s did have the problem at normal speeds. Airflow between the cockpit and the engines made the buffet badly.
So lockheed added fillets at the leading edge of the wing between the cockpit pod and the engine necelles. You can see em in a the 38 in AH if you look front and right your left. You can see At the beginning of wing it starts out wider then sharply goes into the normal width. That is the fillet they added to the D or F models (maybe even earlier than that.) That stoped that buffeting but and I think it help with airflow over the at high speeds to but not sure.

Cw
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[Captain Virgil Hilts]

The inner wings of the P-38 is where the problem lies. Until the advent of the J model with the core type intercoolers, very little fuel was carried in the outer wings. It is the inner wing that is very thick. The fillets were added to the D model if memory serves correct. They also nearly tripled the thickness of the elevator skin to add weight to stabilize it. The P-38 wing has a very high aspect ratio, which gives it the abiltiy to climb as well as it does, and also the low stall speed and good handling characteristics. If you put a P-51 style wing on a P-38, you'd lose a lot of climb rate, and other advantages.

Compression has little to do with the gondola, it is the wing that makes air flow exceed actual air speed by about 1.5 times.

If you were going to modify the P-38 wing, the thing to do would be to add about 10 more degrees of dihedral, further increase the radius of the fillets, and sweep the leading edge of the wings about 15 degrees. If you jack around with the aspect ratio, you'll lose a lot of other good characteristics.

[BigCrate]

Hmmmm yeah was looking a fron pic of a P-38F i think. and had has some dihedral but not much. But also if yeah add to much dihedral won't the plane become unstable????? I know dihedral
adds stability but if yeah much won't it hurts the performance of the plane?? hhehehe a P-38 with a slightly swept wing would be bad ass. .. I have to say this tho. If ya modify a plane to much you start to lose somethings that made it a unique plane. What I like about the p-38 is its curves. Heheh this is probly the most curvey plane I know of! Are there some kind of computer model programmes that I can D/L or buy? To mess around with this.
Would be a fun project to mess around with. And to see how things turn out .

Cw
=Twin Engined Devils=

[BigCrate]

Hmmmm yeah was looking a fron pic of a P-38F i think. and had has some dihedral but not much. But also if yeah add to much dihedral won't the plane become unstable????? I know dihedral
adds stability but if yeah much won't it hurts the performance of the plane?? hhehehe a P-38 with a slightly swept wing would be bad ass. .. I have to say this tho. If ya modify a plane to much you start to lose somethings that made it a unique plane. What I like about the p-38 is its curves. Heheh this is probly the most curvey plane I know of! Are there some kind of computer model programmes that I can D/L or buy? To mess around with this.
Would be a fun project to mess around with. And to see how things turn out .

Cw
=Twin Engined Devils=

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

The P-38 has 15 degrees of dihedral, according to what Warren (Bodie) told me. A little more dihedral (actually, I think 5 degrees is more like it, ten is too much) would have raised the booms above the cockpit nacelle and center wings a little more, which would have put the elevators in cleaner air. That does NOT change compression much, except for how air would travel over the wings with more dihedral. It would possibly have slowed the roll rate a little more. The wingspan is what made the P-38 so slow to roll, and it was so stable, if a little more dihedral made it less stable it would not have hurt it.

The larger radius would have helped a little more. But angling the leading edge of the center wings so that the edges would have angled back from the center nacelle to the booms would have caused the air to flow towards the booms and slowed the air down, which would have helped mitigate or lessen the effects of compression and possibly raised the critical Mach number by a fair margin.

Compression is not the same as elevator flutter, which is what the USAAF thought the problem was. Compression does not lock the elevator, what it does is change the way the wing generates lift, and moves the center of lift towards the rear. It was also call "Mach Tuck", because it caused the nose to "tuck under".

[BigCrate]

I wish draw or something to post on here to show what Captain Virgil Hilts is talking about.. A P-38 with these new lines would cool as hell. And probly would have added to the top speed in lvl and top speed in a dive. Hmmmmmmm anybody out there that could a computer model of the P-38 with the things Captain Virgil Hilts stated????

Cw
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