GunsCarsGuitars
Banned
You say that like its a bad thingThe F7F is a beautiful plane.
Oh, no doubt! But Viperjock has repeatedly brought the F7F into a P-38 thread, so he obviously has the hots for the twin-engine Grumman.
Oh, no doubt! But Viperjock has repeatedly brought the F7F into a P-38 thread, so he obviously has the hots for the twin-engine Grumman.
This does not appear to be a well understood phenomenon these days...computing power and obscene greed, combined, have brought us to this point.
I'd say it's about healthy profit. Airline profits are pretty thin at the best of times, so if an airliner can carry a few more pounds of (paying) freight... Computing power may play a part in how fine it's possible to cut it, today, but the idea of testing a wing to destruction & only making it as strong as it had to be did not require anything more than an insightful engineer & a slipstick: when you know how much load causes your design to fail, & you know what the spec asks for, it ain't rocket surgery to subtract...
Minor sidetrack but here have a pretty US aircraft (I have no idea what it is) to go with this AMAZING story.
And i'll say it again, whilst this story is very technical and detail intensive, its not at all overwhelming or intimidating if you're like me, and know very little about planes other than in WW2 they went dakka-dakk-dakka and neeeeyown. Its damn well written and very characterful too.
Does anyone know what that plane is? I'm drawing a blank. The original X-version of a changed and better known plane maybe?
If I had to fathom a guess, I would say it most closely resembles the Douglas TBD Devastator. As you said, maybe it is an XTBD?
The only one I can think of is that maybe its some kind of proto Devastator?
One man's healthy profit is another's obscene greed...we're obviously on opposite sides of the aisle..same as the country.
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Vultee V-12, completely changed variant of the V-11, and changed again with later V-12 variants.
But please try to stay on track.
I can see that for the noobs, but in conversion training? That's equal to about a quarter of the total syllabus Stateside, isn't it? Or more?It's a good thing to do for the situation. This is the introduction of a brand new and powerful and complex airplane to the first of the combat squadrons that will be using them. Aside from the small number of F-4 photo-recon airplanes. The freshly minted pilots from the States get a chance to learn combat tactics from the veterans and get acclimated to the tropics. Presumably the conversion training would have been occurring at Charters Towers just west of Townsville in Australia.
The veteran pilots get a chance to rest up, eat decent food and maybe recover from any tropical ailments that may have contracted in Papua New Guinea. They also get lots of time to learn the P-38. A more complex airplane than any of them have flown before in OTL or the ATL.
Both the new guys and veterans aren't just doodling along looking at the outback scenery. They would have been practicing navigation and formation flying. Mock combat and gunnery practice too. Though not at the same time I hope.
And every flight hour in the new plane brings the pilots more familiarity so reactions to surprises become fast and automatic and correct. I believe that if the situation at the time is not too dire then time spent on training is never wasted.Gives the 5th air force command staff and senior pilots an opportunity to evaluate their new airplane and consider how best to deploy it. The ground and maintenance crews especially the crew chiefs get familiarized with their new P-38s as well. Everything learned here will facilitate the later conversions of other squadrons as more Lightnings are shipped to the SWPA hopefully in TTL.
Driftless
Donor
Vultee V-12 I believe. I find Vultee's numbering scheme a bit confusing, as the V-11's & V-12's seem to have a number of configurations.
Just Leo you are truly a walking and talking fount of aviation knowledge. I spent some time grubbing around on Google and I just couldn't identify that plane. Thanks.
I'm now looking at the wikipedia entry for the Vultee V-12 and you nailed it alright. I owe you a cold one.
Ch.12 - Preparing for the Future (Jan 1943)
I was hoping to have more but the next one is taking longer to put together than expected. So, here's a little technical update:
15 January 1943
Burbank, California, USA
As the Chief Research Engineer for a major Government contractor during a time of war, Kelly Johnson had been kept busy. He was continuing to head up the L-049 Constellation development as well as keeping up on the ongoing improvements with the P-38 and working the occasional new development idea.
That is not to say the previous year had not brought some disappointments. The Air Corps had declined the proposal for the L-1000 axial-flow turbine engine and the revolutionary L-133 fighter it was to power while XP-58 continued to languish in development hell without a suitable engine and the XP-49 seemed to be heading in the same direction. Of course, it was beginning to look like the XP-49 would be redundant to the P-38 anyway, so that was not so much of a loss to Johnson anymore.
The continued cycle of evolution that his beloved Model 22—Model 422 now—was undergoing astounded him.
In the past year, since development of NACA recommendations, the P-38 had received a new central nacelle, new center wing section, new engines, new turbo-superchargers, new coolant radiators, new inter-coolers, additional fuel-cells, a second electrical generator, and a new canopy. In addition, the incremental improvements had included improved fuel mixture automation, a new flap setting, new “wet” under-wing racks for bombs and fuel, and whatever improvements to the fitted military equipment the Army had thrown in.
Since Model 422 production started in late March of the previous year, they had produced around nine-hundred of them, including about one-hundred F-5 reconnaissance aircraft based on the P-38F (F-5A) and P-38G (F-5B). They had completed all of the orders from 1941—excluding the French and British order which the USAAF had taken over—in early July with the completion of the Block-5 P-38F’s and were now working to fulfil the over 3000 planes worth of orders from 1942.
The line had been finishing about 100 P-38’s per month but they were working hard to get a second line up and increase that rate by more than double. Even so, word was coming from Ben Kelsey that both Doolittle in Algeria and Kenney in Australia were all but begging for more Lightnings. Soon, Kelly was certain, they would have to look at either building a second assembly plant or contracting another manufacturer to help fill the demand.
Compounding the demand was continued difficulties with serviceability and readiness in the forward fields. The Air Corps was reporting that at any given time only about 60-65% of P-38’s were ready for combat sorties with the rest down for maintenance and repair. While some of the planes were grounded because of battle damage many more were grounded because of mechanical failures—almost all related to the power plant and turbo-supercharger—or due to accidents. Additionally, on average around 10-15% of planes sortied returned due to mechanical and systems failures. Certainly there had been the occasional quality issue with odd airframes here and there but overall the Lockheed systems were pretty reliable.
Kelly thought the latest block, P-38G-15-LO which had started rolling out of the B-1 production facility a few weeks ago, would help alleviate some of the reliability issues. After working with General-Electric throughout the summer, his Engineers finally developed a suitable and simple solution to the issue of turbo over-speed conditions, the last item to be fixed from Kelsey’s recommendations a year earlier.
G-E had designed the turbo-superchargers with an impulse-type tachometer integrated into the main bearing housing of the centrifugal compressor assembly. The original intent was to use this to provide the pilot with a pair of turbo-tachometers in the cockpit to monitor the RPMs but with the P-38 instrument panel already pretty crowded Lockheed had instead decided to use the voltage from the impulses to light small glow lamps which provided the pilot with a visual warning when the turbines were in an over-speed condition. The solution to the over-speeds that Kelly’s engineers came up with was to repurpose this impulse current to a high-frequency switch which actuates a secondary waste gate control. This allows the turbos to essentially govern themselves and removes additional load from the pilot as he no longer has to worry about monitoring turbo speed.
An added feature to this new Turbo-Governor was that they also tied in a mercury switch coming off the turbo-supercharger oil-out line so that, even if the RPMs are below the acceptable limit, if the turbine machinery begins running too hot it will automatically begin to open the waste gate and reduce the speed of the hot turbo. The hope was that this temperature control will help increase turbine life and reliability when on long combat patrols and ferry flights.
In testing the previous fall, Milo Burcham, Ralph Virden, and Tony LeVier all reported that the system worked as designed at all altitudes and throttle settings. A side effect was that above the Critical Altitude the new Turbo Governor takes over waste gate control from the throttles and the Manifold Air Pressure (MAP) Regulator, maintaining the maximum allowed Turbo RPM regardless of manifold pressure and removing the need for the pilot to constantly retard the throttles if they continue to climb, thereby removing one more thing from the pilot’s list of worries.
The biggest question was where to set the limits for the turbo RPM. To that end, Ben Kelsey had been splitting his time between Muroc and Burbank to test the limits of the engines in a plane modified with all of the throttle blocks and governors removed. For the initial production run, and until Kelsey comes back with his findings, they were using the previously tested 24,000 RPM limit which gives the P-38G with and its F-10 engines a MAP of 54.2 in/Hg up to 19,600 feet using the B-13 turbos and can hold Rated Power of 44.5 in/Hg up to 26,000 feet. Even under those conditions, Carburetor Air Temperature (CAT) was held below 40°C (104°F) thanks to the AiResearch core-type inter-coolers.
The first three P-38G-10’s which came off the line in early November were being kept on hand as development test mules for the next planned major upgrade of the product line, the P-38H. Two of these were being fitted with Allison’s new more efficient F-17 engines and one was being re-fitted using the more powerful experimental F-15 engines.
The F-15 project was of particular interest because it was designed around a new propeller system from Hamilton-Standard, a hydraulic constant-speed paddle blade set up which H-S called “Hydromatic.” The new high-efficiency propellers needed to run at lower RPM so the F-15 engines used a 2.31:1 gear-reduction instead of the 2:1 gear-reduction used with the Curtiss-Electric propellers. The design and fabrication teams needed to broaden the cowling and build a slightly larger propeller spinner to accommodate the bulkier hydraulic set up so the plane was not yet ready to fly but it seemed promising.
The two being fitted with the F-17 engines were keeping the Curtiss-Electric propellers and were much farther along in their development. They had already been upgraded to P-38G-15 standards and one already had the F-17 engines installed while Lockheed awaited delivery of two more F-17’s for the second plane.
Apart from the engine upgrades, the P-38H test planes were going to field a few other enhancements based on input from the Air Corps test pilots and USAAF reports from combat. One of these was yet another system to reduce pilot work-load and involved developing fully automatic control of the Inter-Cooler, Oil Radiator, and Prestone Radiator shutters. The problem, as reported, was that in combat pilots were failing to properly manage the current manual shutters to control airflow through the various radiators and as a result engines were running variously too hot or too cold and failing.
High CAT was a well-known issue from the Model 222 with its leading edge inter-coolers and was mostly alleviated with the installation of the chin mounted core-type inter-coolers in the Model 422 but under prolonged high-throttle settings with the inter-cooler exit shutters closed they were still running into problems with detonation and resultant engine failure which had proved to be deadly in the stresses of aerial warfare.
Oil Temperature issues were somewhat less common and mostly happened on the other end of the scale—long flights at high altitude with the oil radiator exit flaps open were resulting in the oil congealing which causes a spike in oil pressure and has seized the oil pumps, burst lines, and starved the engines of lubrication which has led to a few instances of entire engines seizing and throwing rods or worse.
Similar situations developed with the Prestone coolant temperatures. Pilots were forgetting to close the radiator exit flaps and with long flights at high altitude and low RPM the engines were becoming too cold. While not a problem in itself, issues arose when the pilots needed to suddenly increase RPMs and Throttles on contact with the enemy. The cold engines were unable to handle the sudden increase in exhaust pressures and temperatures and were blowing manifolds and even cracking heads. Again, this usually resulted in sudden power loss and even in engine failure—all at the most critical time for a combat pilot.
The engineering teams were working on automatic shutters and exit flaps for all three systems which relied on pressure switches attached to the instrument gauge vacuum lines to progressively actuate the shutters with changes in the measured temperatures. The theory is that when the pressure in the gauge line increases it will push on the pressure switch sending a weak current to the hydraulic actuators and start to open the shutters. The more pressure, the more the switch is depressed, the more current flows to the actuators and the farther the shutters open. Conversely, as the temperatures drop, the pressure in the lines decreases and the opposite action occurs—decreasing the current and the actuators begin closing the shutters.
To date, it was only a design theory and they had not yet built or installed any of the systems on the test mules. They still had a few problems to work out with the installation including the switch calibration, configuring the hydraulic stops to correlate to specific temperature ranges, and how to (or if they should) include a manual over-ride and by-pass which will still allow the pilot to manually control the shutters if needed.
With the production facility booked out for a few months there was still time to continue refining the P-38H. Lockheed was anxiously awaiting the complete report from the USAAF Proving Grounds in Florida on the P-38F which they had been working on since August. The hope was that if this full report were completed in time they would be able to address any other deficiencies the Army Air Forces identified with the airplane before P-38H production was scheduled to start in May.
15 January 1943
Burbank, California, USA
As the Chief Research Engineer for a major Government contractor during a time of war, Kelly Johnson had been kept busy. He was continuing to head up the L-049 Constellation development as well as keeping up on the ongoing improvements with the P-38 and working the occasional new development idea.
That is not to say the previous year had not brought some disappointments. The Air Corps had declined the proposal for the L-1000 axial-flow turbine engine and the revolutionary L-133 fighter it was to power while XP-58 continued to languish in development hell without a suitable engine and the XP-49 seemed to be heading in the same direction. Of course, it was beginning to look like the XP-49 would be redundant to the P-38 anyway, so that was not so much of a loss to Johnson anymore.
The continued cycle of evolution that his beloved Model 22—Model 422 now—was undergoing astounded him.
In the past year, since development of NACA recommendations, the P-38 had received a new central nacelle, new center wing section, new engines, new turbo-superchargers, new coolant radiators, new inter-coolers, additional fuel-cells, a second electrical generator, and a new canopy. In addition, the incremental improvements had included improved fuel mixture automation, a new flap setting, new “wet” under-wing racks for bombs and fuel, and whatever improvements to the fitted military equipment the Army had thrown in.
Since Model 422 production started in late March of the previous year, they had produced around nine-hundred of them, including about one-hundred F-5 reconnaissance aircraft based on the P-38F (F-5A) and P-38G (F-5B). They had completed all of the orders from 1941—excluding the French and British order which the USAAF had taken over—in early July with the completion of the Block-5 P-38F’s and were now working to fulfil the over 3000 planes worth of orders from 1942.
The line had been finishing about 100 P-38’s per month but they were working hard to get a second line up and increase that rate by more than double. Even so, word was coming from Ben Kelsey that both Doolittle in Algeria and Kenney in Australia were all but begging for more Lightnings. Soon, Kelly was certain, they would have to look at either building a second assembly plant or contracting another manufacturer to help fill the demand.
Compounding the demand was continued difficulties with serviceability and readiness in the forward fields. The Air Corps was reporting that at any given time only about 60-65% of P-38’s were ready for combat sorties with the rest down for maintenance and repair. While some of the planes were grounded because of battle damage many more were grounded because of mechanical failures—almost all related to the power plant and turbo-supercharger—or due to accidents. Additionally, on average around 10-15% of planes sortied returned due to mechanical and systems failures. Certainly there had been the occasional quality issue with odd airframes here and there but overall the Lockheed systems were pretty reliable.
Kelly thought the latest block, P-38G-15-LO which had started rolling out of the B-1 production facility a few weeks ago, would help alleviate some of the reliability issues. After working with General-Electric throughout the summer, his Engineers finally developed a suitable and simple solution to the issue of turbo over-speed conditions, the last item to be fixed from Kelsey’s recommendations a year earlier.
G-E had designed the turbo-superchargers with an impulse-type tachometer integrated into the main bearing housing of the centrifugal compressor assembly. The original intent was to use this to provide the pilot with a pair of turbo-tachometers in the cockpit to monitor the RPMs but with the P-38 instrument panel already pretty crowded Lockheed had instead decided to use the voltage from the impulses to light small glow lamps which provided the pilot with a visual warning when the turbines were in an over-speed condition. The solution to the over-speeds that Kelly’s engineers came up with was to repurpose this impulse current to a high-frequency switch which actuates a secondary waste gate control. This allows the turbos to essentially govern themselves and removes additional load from the pilot as he no longer has to worry about monitoring turbo speed.
An added feature to this new Turbo-Governor was that they also tied in a mercury switch coming off the turbo-supercharger oil-out line so that, even if the RPMs are below the acceptable limit, if the turbine machinery begins running too hot it will automatically begin to open the waste gate and reduce the speed of the hot turbo. The hope was that this temperature control will help increase turbine life and reliability when on long combat patrols and ferry flights.
In testing the previous fall, Milo Burcham, Ralph Virden, and Tony LeVier all reported that the system worked as designed at all altitudes and throttle settings. A side effect was that above the Critical Altitude the new Turbo Governor takes over waste gate control from the throttles and the Manifold Air Pressure (MAP) Regulator, maintaining the maximum allowed Turbo RPM regardless of manifold pressure and removing the need for the pilot to constantly retard the throttles if they continue to climb, thereby removing one more thing from the pilot’s list of worries.
The biggest question was where to set the limits for the turbo RPM. To that end, Ben Kelsey had been splitting his time between Muroc and Burbank to test the limits of the engines in a plane modified with all of the throttle blocks and governors removed. For the initial production run, and until Kelsey comes back with his findings, they were using the previously tested 24,000 RPM limit which gives the P-38G with and its F-10 engines a MAP of 54.2 in/Hg up to 19,600 feet using the B-13 turbos and can hold Rated Power of 44.5 in/Hg up to 26,000 feet. Even under those conditions, Carburetor Air Temperature (CAT) was held below 40°C (104°F) thanks to the AiResearch core-type inter-coolers.
The first three P-38G-10’s which came off the line in early November were being kept on hand as development test mules for the next planned major upgrade of the product line, the P-38H. Two of these were being fitted with Allison’s new more efficient F-17 engines and one was being re-fitted using the more powerful experimental F-15 engines.
The F-15 project was of particular interest because it was designed around a new propeller system from Hamilton-Standard, a hydraulic constant-speed paddle blade set up which H-S called “Hydromatic.” The new high-efficiency propellers needed to run at lower RPM so the F-15 engines used a 2.31:1 gear-reduction instead of the 2:1 gear-reduction used with the Curtiss-Electric propellers. The design and fabrication teams needed to broaden the cowling and build a slightly larger propeller spinner to accommodate the bulkier hydraulic set up so the plane was not yet ready to fly but it seemed promising.
The two being fitted with the F-17 engines were keeping the Curtiss-Electric propellers and were much farther along in their development. They had already been upgraded to P-38G-15 standards and one already had the F-17 engines installed while Lockheed awaited delivery of two more F-17’s for the second plane.
Apart from the engine upgrades, the P-38H test planes were going to field a few other enhancements based on input from the Air Corps test pilots and USAAF reports from combat. One of these was yet another system to reduce pilot work-load and involved developing fully automatic control of the Inter-Cooler, Oil Radiator, and Prestone Radiator shutters. The problem, as reported, was that in combat pilots were failing to properly manage the current manual shutters to control airflow through the various radiators and as a result engines were running variously too hot or too cold and failing.
High CAT was a well-known issue from the Model 222 with its leading edge inter-coolers and was mostly alleviated with the installation of the chin mounted core-type inter-coolers in the Model 422 but under prolonged high-throttle settings with the inter-cooler exit shutters closed they were still running into problems with detonation and resultant engine failure which had proved to be deadly in the stresses of aerial warfare.
Oil Temperature issues were somewhat less common and mostly happened on the other end of the scale—long flights at high altitude with the oil radiator exit flaps open were resulting in the oil congealing which causes a spike in oil pressure and has seized the oil pumps, burst lines, and starved the engines of lubrication which has led to a few instances of entire engines seizing and throwing rods or worse.
Similar situations developed with the Prestone coolant temperatures. Pilots were forgetting to close the radiator exit flaps and with long flights at high altitude and low RPM the engines were becoming too cold. While not a problem in itself, issues arose when the pilots needed to suddenly increase RPMs and Throttles on contact with the enemy. The cold engines were unable to handle the sudden increase in exhaust pressures and temperatures and were blowing manifolds and even cracking heads. Again, this usually resulted in sudden power loss and even in engine failure—all at the most critical time for a combat pilot.
The engineering teams were working on automatic shutters and exit flaps for all three systems which relied on pressure switches attached to the instrument gauge vacuum lines to progressively actuate the shutters with changes in the measured temperatures. The theory is that when the pressure in the gauge line increases it will push on the pressure switch sending a weak current to the hydraulic actuators and start to open the shutters. The more pressure, the more the switch is depressed, the more current flows to the actuators and the farther the shutters open. Conversely, as the temperatures drop, the pressure in the lines decreases and the opposite action occurs—decreasing the current and the actuators begin closing the shutters.
To date, it was only a design theory and they had not yet built or installed any of the systems on the test mules. They still had a few problems to work out with the installation including the switch calibration, configuring the hydraulic stops to correlate to specific temperature ranges, and how to (or if they should) include a manual over-ride and by-pass which will still allow the pilot to manually control the shutters if needed.
With the production facility booked out for a few months there was still time to continue refining the P-38H. Lockheed was anxiously awaiting the complete report from the USAAF Proving Grounds in Florida on the P-38F which they had been working on since August. The hope was that if this full report were completed in time they would be able to address any other deficiencies the Army Air Forces identified with the airplane before P-38H production was scheduled to start in May.
GunsCarsGuitars
Banned
It's a good thing to do for the situation. This is the introduction of a brand new and powerful and complex airplane to the first of the combat squadrons that will be using them. Aside from the small number of F-4 photo-recon airplanes. The freshly minted pilots from the States get a chance to learn combat tactics from the veterans and get acclimated to the tropics. Presumably the conversion training would have been occurring at Charters Towers just west of Townsville in Australia.
The veteran pilots get a chance to rest up, eat decent food and maybe recover from any tropical ailments that may have contracted in Papua New Guinea. They also get lots of time to learn the P-38. A more complex airplane than any of them have flown before in OTL or the ATL.
Both the new guys and veterans aren't just doodling along looking at the outback scenery. They would have been practicing navigation and formation flying. Mock combat and gunnery practice too. Though not at the same time I hope.
Gives the 5th air force command staff and senior pilots an opportunity to evaluate their new airplane and consider how best to deploy it. The ground and maintenance crews especially the crew chiefs get familiarized with their new P-38s as well. Everything learned here will facilitate the later conversions of other squadrons as more Lightnings are shipped to the SWPA hopefully in TTL.
These guys have been flying P-40s, P-39s. even P-36s. Most of then have NO twin-engine training. It's a totally different animal.
The intricate details of the ongoing ATL P-38 refinement are really absorbing. It's fun watching the various flaws being addressed and corrected. The ATL P38H will be an easier airplane to get current on then the earlier models with the development of those auto-systems. Somewhat reminiscent of OTL plane but much more advanced of course. All in the purpose of improving reliability and serviceability.
Getting ever nearer to the perfected P-38.
I'm going to guess that the F-15 engined paddle-bladed Lightning will be model P-38J or maybe K with production beginning in Dec. 1943. Second sources permitting.
Edit. That paddle-bladed Lightning wouldn't be designated P-38I. As the AAF didn't use I as was just pointed out to me.
Getting ever nearer to the perfected P-38.
I'm going to guess that the F-15 engined paddle-bladed Lightning will be model P-38J or maybe K with production beginning in Dec. 1943. Second sources permitting.
Edit. That paddle-bladed Lightning wouldn't be designated P-38I. As the AAF didn't use I as was just pointed out to me.
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OTL P-38H was started only shortly before P-38J and really only existed at all because there weren't enough of the new inter-coolers yet. ITTL AiResearch has had the opportunity to increase production alongside of P-38 production so that isn't an issue and the ATL P-38H will take the place of both the H and J from OTL. The improvements such as the automatic shutters and turbo-governors were introduced in the J (at various stages) but will come marginally earlier here because of more effort and focus.
I believe they usually skip "I" because it can be confused for a lower-case "L" ("l") or a nemeric "1," so the next one after H will be J and ITTL it will take the place of the OTL L although the specific start of production will depend on how ambitious they get with it. If they go for the Hydromatics they will first need a second factory running at full capacity to minimize production impact so the Army will actually allow them the couple weeks to retool.
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Don't bet on it (in either case). (I presume you meant "aisle".)
If there's no profit, there's no progress: without a reason to improve...
I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I just find it unlikely. I could see maybe half that in conversion training Stateside, but once you've got qualified fliers, they'd be presumed to know how to aim & shoot & such, & all they'd really need to be taught is how to keep the P-38 from killing them (& maybe not all those ways, either; they'd be presumed to know, frex, how to switch fuel tanks--which might not be so clear-cut in the P-38 as they think...).It's a good thing to do for the situation. This is the introduction of a brand new and powerful and complex airplane to the first of the combat squadrons that will be using them. Aside from the small number of F-4 photo-recon airplanes. The freshly minted pilots from the States get a chance to learn combat tactics from the veterans and get acclimated to the tropics. Presumably the conversion training would have been occurring at Charters Towers just west of Townsville in Australia.
The veteran pilots get a chance to rest up, eat decent food and maybe recover from any tropical ailments that may have contracted in Papua New Guinea. They also get lots of time to learn the P-38. A more complex airplane than any of them have flown before in OTL or the ATL.
Both the new guys and veterans aren't just doodling along looking at the outback scenery. They would have been practicing navigation and formation flying. Mock combat and gunnery practice too. Though not at the same time I hope.
Gives the 5th air force command staff and senior pilots an opportunity to evaluate their new airplane and consider how best to deploy it. The ground and maintenance crews especially the crew chiefs get familiarized with their new P-38s as well. Everything learned here will facilitate the later conversions of other squadrons as more Lightnings are shipped to the SWPA hopefully in TTL.
I am very surprised by a number that's so high. I wouldn't have expected conversion from single to twin to be so difficult. After all, the trainees were transitioned right from T-6s into P-51s,
& it seemed never to occur to anybody a TP-51 might be a good idea...An elegant solution. Bravo. And, again, a fine update. I'm liking the insight into problem solving, but also the look at just how complicated flying a piston fighter was in those days. (Or, indeed, any aircraft...) Not like now.
Question: do you anticipate a "lightweight" P-38, akin the XP-51H?
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I hadn't really considered it before. I think it unlikely though because no matter how good the P-38 may be Lockheed's best engineering resources are tied up in jet aircraft starting in June '43 with only small efforts going into further Lighting improvements OTL. Of course, that isn't to say the lightning can't shadow the Corsair and a contracted manufacturer couldn't develop a Super-Lightning like Goodyear did with the Super-Corsair. I mean Lockheed tried to do it with the XP-49 but they made it even heavier and bigger with troublesome engines. There might be a way to make it lighter and better.