Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Sway on December 24, 2003, 12:53:42 PM

Title: p38
Post by: Sway on December 24, 2003, 12:53:42 PM

Anyone have some good information comparing the different models of p38's?

Title: p38
Post by: Widewing on December 24, 2003, 05:30:16 PM

Try this. (http://home.att.net/~ww2aviation/P-38.html)

My regards,

Widewing

Title: p38
Post by: killnu on December 24, 2003, 09:56:40 PM

outstanding read!! ty Widewing. :D
~S~

Title: p38
Post by: Sway on December 25, 2003, 02:10:42 PM

Thanks Bud :D

Title: p38
Post by: Raptor on December 28, 2003, 12:15:10 AM

Here is a P38J model that removed all forward firing guns and was replaced with a bombadier.
P38J Droopsnoot
(http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p38-16.jpg)

Title: comparing 38s
Post by: OLtos on May 01, 2004, 02:25:49 PM

The best technical comparison of fighters in general (including the P-38) is in Francis Dean's "America's 100,000".  And, oh brother does it get technical.

Title: p38
Post by: Captain Virgil Hilts on May 02, 2004, 03:20:33 AM

I'd say the best book devoted specifically to the P-38 is Warren Bodie's "Lockheed P-38 Lightning". Bodie was a Lockheed engineer for a long time, and had access to both the Lockheed archives and the USAF (USAAC in WW II) archives. This book is no longer in print in hardcover, but is available used from Amazon. The soft cover has recently been reprinted.

Dean's "America's Hundred Thousand" is also excellent.

You will however note that in many books, you find that the later model P-38's were either not tested at War Emergency Power, or the data is not given.

If you get a copy of a book called "Allied Aircraft Piston Engines of World War II", you'll find there was a rather large horsepower increase under War Emergency Power in the later model P-38's. Another good book that covers the P-38 engines as well is "Vee's for Victory". That book is an indepth work on the Allison V1710 V-12 engine. You'll find that according to both of those books, the later engines in the P-38 should have pushed it to well over 440 MPH.

There are several other books available. Note that Martin Caiden's "The Forked Tail Devil' is not really well thought of, despite having plenty of anecdotal information and having legendary P-38 pilot Art Heiden as a contributor.

By the way, when you buy books, especially from Amazon, buy them through websites like http://www.danosacm.com or http://home.att.net/~C.C.Jordan/ , both of those sites are run and maintained by AH fliers. It does not cost you an extra cent, and it helps them keep their sites going.

Title: War emergency power
Post by: OLtos on December 20, 2004, 10:42:03 PM

P-38s of all sorts may not have had the water injection version of WEP!  They were turbo charged engines.  I have heard pilots of the p38 in interviews on WINGS say that what they would do is seriously OVERboost the engine.  They CLAIMED that under 15k alt this NEVER resulted in overheating the engines and gave this monster a huge advantage.  But Aces High does not allow manual boost and porks the p-38 on the overheating problem when historically it was only the 8th AF at 25 - 35 k alt that suffered from the problem.  Oh well

Title: p38
Post by: Scherf on December 21, 2004, 03:03:49 AM

Virgil:

Thanks for the note about Caiden - I'd heard that before, but not from P-38 fans. Your credibility just went up.

Cheers,

Scherf

Title: p38
Post by: Murdr on December 22, 2004, 06:59:39 PM

Try this (http://home.att.net/%7Ejbaugher1/p38.html)