It is interesting to listen to some of the more well read comments on the P-38. She is a favorite of mine as well. Largely due to Martin Caiden's Fork Tailed Devil.
Anyway as for the dive flap. Fitted to late model Js and all production Ls. Earleir modesl in England were supposed to be retrofitted with the flap when the P-47 was retrofitted,(yep it had them to), but some trigger happy spit dweeb shot down the goon carrying the retrofit kit over the Irish Sea. And yes they did add some drag but NO it did not slow the plane down. It merely slowed down how fast it would ACCELRATE. And Lockheed did develope that dive flap. NACA kept trying to tell Lockheed the whole problem was "tail flutter" because NACA did not want to admit that their fluid dynamics based airflow equations were totally useless at near mach speeds, (fluids don't compress and the NACA equations based on fluids could NOT account for air compression at near mach speeds). Caiden and Francis Dean do a descent job of laying all that out.
For the chap who clarified buffet vs compression THANKS I was beginning to be bothered by "compressing" under 15k alt. But now I see that this is merely buffet, which is why I can pull out of it. Kewl.
OK. I have a beef though. Martin Caiden and Francis Dean both present multiple accounts of pilots who flew the P-38 who state that in a hi bank flat turn, in fact in any hi speed stall, the P-38 COULD not break into a snap roll. THUS all the 38 drivres that Caiden quotes state that THE BEST way to beat any single engine fighter w/the 38 was to keep the fight in flat turns. Yet, in AH the P-38, at least the one I fly, is an absolute TERROR to me the pilot the way it breaks unpredictably into a snap roll when I get into hi speed, hi angle of attack turns. What's going on?
I have also been the recipient of several messages from 38 drivers in the game who SWEAR their P-38s do NOT snap roll. Am I seeing a situation where this plane is behaving differently on differnt computers?
Any input would be a help, because everything I have read here about how to fly the 38 is exactly the opposite of what the pilots that Dean and Caiden quote say to do.
OLtos
