Author Topic: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)  (Read 8623 times)

Offline Puma44

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #15 on: April 19, 2020, 04:29:19 PM »
One thing that is left out here is the amount of workload the pilot had to do to manage the engines on the 38.

 I recall reading that it required something like 6 different controls and some time to get the engines of the 38 out of cruise into fighting mode. From one of the engagements I have read in Steinhoffs "Messerschmitts Over Sicily: Diary of a Luftwaffe" 2 109s engaged a flight of 38's shooting 1 or 2 of them down. There was on "fear" are hype about how dangerous the 38 was. They did seem puzzled why the 38s appear to run instead of engaging.

I'm not downplaying the 38, I'm just saying that I could cherry-pick quotes to support why I think any plane was greater then another plane.


Two throttles, two prop controls, and two mixture controls, pretty much the norm for a propeller driven twin.  Very conceivable to screw up management of one or more in the heat of battle.



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Offline Oldman731

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #16 on: April 19, 2020, 07:36:31 PM »
I recall reading that it required something like 6 different controls and some time to get the engines of the 38 out of cruise into fighting mode.

Probably you were reading the report of the CO of the hapless 20th FG.  See https://www.historynet.com/p-38-flunked-europe.htm (cleverly titled "Why the P-38 Flunked Europe"):


Major General William Kepner, the fiery commanding general of VIII Fighter Command, wondered, as so many others did, why the P-38 wasn’t producing the results everyone wanted, and what to do about it. Asked to provide a written report, 20th Fighter Group commander Colonel Harold J. Rau did so reluctantly and only because he was ordered to.

“After flying the P-38 for a little over one hundred hours on combat missions it is my belief that the airplane, as it stands now, is too complicated for the ‘average’ pilot,” wrote Rau. “I want to put strong emphasis on the word ‘average,’ taking full consideration just how little combat training our pilots have before going on operational status.”

Rau wrote that he was being asked to put kids fresh from flight school into P-38 cockpits and it wasn’t working. He asked his boss to imagine “a pilot fresh out of flying school with about a total of twenty-five hours in a P-38, starting out on a combat mission.” Rau’s young pilot was on “auto lean and running on external tanks. His gun heater is off to relieve the load on his generator, which frequently gives out (under sustained heavy load). His sight is off to save burning out the bulb. His combat switch may or may not be on.” So, flying along in this condition, wrote Rau, the kid suddenly gets bounced by German fighters. Now he wonders what to do next.

“He must turn, he must increase power and get rid of those external tanks and get on his main [fuel tank],” Rau wrote. “So, he reaches down and turns two stiff, difficult gas switches (valves) to main, turns on his drop tank switches, presses his release button, puts the mixture to auto rich (two separate and clumsy operations), increases his RPM, increases his manifold pressure, turns on his gun heater switch (which he must feel for and cannot possibly see), turns on his combat switch and he is ready to fight.” To future generations this would be called multi-tasking, and it was not what you wanted to be doing when Luftwaffe fighters were pouring down on you.

“At this point, he has probably been shot down,” Rau noted, “or he has done one of several things wrong. Most common error is to push the throttles wide open before increasing RPM. This causes detonation and subsequent engine failure. Or, he forgets to switch back to auto rich, and gets excessive cylinder head temperature with subsequent engine failure.”

Another P-38 pilot described the multi-tasking challenge this way: “When you reduce power you must pull back the throttle (manifold pressure) first, then the prop RPM, and then the mixture. To increase power you must first put the mixture rich, then increase prop RPM, then increase manifold pressure. If you don’t follow this order you can ruin the engine.” Rau added that in his own limited experience, his P-38 group had lost at least four pilots who, when bounced, took no evasive action. “The logical assumption is that they were so busy in the cockpit trying to get organized that they were shot down before they could get going,” he wrote.

- oldman

Offline Arlo

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #17 on: April 19, 2020, 09:04:26 PM »
Thank goodness AHIII doesn't require detailed engine management. Every AH pilot can imagine he does all that by instinct.

Offline hazmatt

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #18 on: April 19, 2020, 09:17:41 PM »
Thanks oldman, that was exactly what I read, however I couldn't remember where I read it.

Offline Badboy

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #19 on: April 20, 2020, 09:01:09 PM »
What is critical mach?

It's the speed where the airflow over some part of the aircraft reaches the speed of sound.

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Offline Shuffler

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #20 on: April 21, 2020, 02:02:54 PM »
It's the speed where the airflow over some part of the aircraft reaches the speed of sound.

Badboy

Howdy BB... just as I logged MNM I noticed you were the one who shot me down.

LOL hope all is going well.
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Offline Badboy

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #21 on: April 21, 2020, 07:14:14 PM »
Howdy BB... just as I logged MNM I noticed you were the one who shot me down.

LOL hope all is going well.

Yep, that was my first time in MNM, it was crazy fun!!

For me it's a 2am start, so not sure how often I'll be able to make it.

Nice to see you there, hope everything is going well at your end too.

Badboy



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Offline Oldman731

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #22 on: April 21, 2020, 09:05:14 PM »
For me it's a 2am start, so not sure how often I'll be able to make it.


Dude.  This is why you retired.  Just sleep later.

- oldman

Offline Shuffler

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #23 on: April 22, 2020, 01:26:58 AM »
Yep, that was my first time in MNM, it was crazy fun!!

For me it's a 2am start, so not sure how often I'll be able to make it.

Nice to see you there, hope everything is going well at your end too.

Badboy

All well here.

Dang 2 am... so you are usually counting sheep. Ahhh memories of early AH.... sheeeeep.
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Offline Badboy

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #24 on: April 22, 2020, 06:58:28 PM »
Dude.  This is why you retired.  Just sleep later.

Good point.

I guess I'm still getting used to some of the freedoms of retired life :aok

Badboy

 

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Offline Ashley Pomeroy

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #25 on: July 26, 2020, 04:02:46 PM »
I realise this is a three-month reply to a thread that started in 2000(!), but it jogged something within me. One of the fascinating things about Aces High and Air Warrior is that they can trace their lineage back to the really early days of the public internet, and I remember reading the message in the OP's post ages ago.

While going through my bookmarks I stumbled on this, which is full of USENET posts from the early 1990s with lists of MUDs and/or people talking with starry eyes about the coming abundance of bandwidth, and how the internet is going to be fantastic when there are thousands of people on it:
http://textfiles.com/internet/

But what I couldn't find was the archive that had the discussion about P-38s. From what I remember one of the participants spent several years dropping hints that he was an actual P-38 pilot. He used to drop names ("I know that Mike in the 23rd never had any problem with cold weather", that kind of thing), and although he never explicitly claimed to a former P-38 pilot he never corrected anybody when they referred to him as such.

The problem is that as P-38 pilots died off it became apparent that he could not possibly be legitimate - the only person he could be had died a year or so beforehand. He was a clever mimic. He never posted again.

It has haunted me ever since. It taught me that you should always be wary of people on the internet who have an "aura". I remember a similar thing happening at Bluray.com a few years later (someone pretended to be a Sony executive kept referring to other Sony executives in first-name terms, but again the number of people it could be was limited and he was eventually outed as a fraud).

Dammit, if only I could find the archive.

Oh yeah, here it is - another bunch of posts from Usenet:
https://yarchive.net/mil/cdb.html

It was a chap called CDB100620. The thing is that if you google "CDB100620 p-38" even today there are people on the internet who quote him, but he was at best a well-informed impersonator:

"Those of us who have written CDB in private were convinced that he was Elliott Dent of the 7th Fighter Squadron, 49th Fighter Group. Dent was the only pilot in the 7th with 6 confirmed kills. CDB signed his e-mail "E.D." I began my messages to him with "Dear Elliott". I was never corrected and certainly led to believe that I was, indeed, writing to Mr. Dent.

Now here's the caveat........

Elliott Dent died on August 28th, 1993.
"
« Last Edit: July 26, 2020, 04:06:03 PM by Ashley Pomeroy »

Offline FLOOB

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #26 on: August 24, 2020, 03:01:32 PM »
From what I’ve heard the p38 was losing in ETO before it had hydraulic ailerons. The power boosted ailerons made all the difference.
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Offline Oldman731

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #27 on: August 24, 2020, 07:21:26 PM »
From what I’ve heard the p38 was losing in ETO before it had hydraulic ailerons. The power boosted ailerons made all the difference.


And it was still losing.

- oldman

Offline Arlo

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #28 on: August 24, 2020, 07:39:01 PM »
It was a pretty airplane.  :old:

Offline Drano

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Re: Interesting reading about P-38s (long)
« Reply #29 on: August 27, 2020, 10:13:11 AM »

And it was still losing.

- oldman

<wags finger> That's enough out of you buddy! :neener:
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