84 years ago today, on February 11th, 1939, Lt. Ben Kelsey almost successfully completed the famous or infamous cross-country flight of the Lockheed XP-38. Unfortunately due to both engines failing Lt. Kelsey was forced to crash-land in a golf course just half a mile short of Mitchel Field. Any golfers out on the links must have been quite surprised when 6 tons of brand new cutting edge technology was suddenly and noisily deposited on the fairway. One could almost compare it to as if today somebody was forced to plunk down the cutting edge technology B-21 Raider in some pasture somewhere. With the crew surviving the crash landing but the aircraft being written off.
But the loss of the only prototype of the P-38 some 84 years ago was likely far more detrimental then losing a B-21 would be nowadays what with the B-21 program more advanced and well established then was the P-38 at that time.
The engine failures that afflicted Lt. Kelsey are usually attributed to carburetor icing. It must have been the perfect cold and dampish conditions to bring on carburetor icing in a turbocharged airplane. In a way having a turbocharger means that there is always some "carb heat" being applied. Even at low boost and low throttle settings while flying an extended landing pattern waiting for clearance to land the air going through the turbocharger on its way to the carburetors would have picked up some heat from the heated supercharger blades even if the air wasn't being compressed very much.
It's hard to see how you can bring about carburetor icing with a turbocharged engine. But, OTOH, Lt. Kelsey was forced to wait several minutes for landing clearance and would have been flying with the engines throttled back to just above idle in the cold and damp air of Long Island in mid-winter. I guess that must have been enough to cool the turbochargers enough that the air being blown through to the the carbs was chilled enough to freeze up and choke the carb's venturis.
Too bad the pilot didn't gun the engines a few more times while orbiting Mitchel Field. Or found some other way to nurse one or both engines enough to at least clear the trees lining the golf course. One can imaging Lt. Kelsey's relief if he had still been able to make the runway at Mitchel Field even with faltering engines. I can imagine the smile as he rolled out down the runway. If only.
The most important thing would've been not having the XP-38 prototype destroyed. After the successful completion of the cross-country flight the plan was for Lt Kelsey to deliver the XP-38 to Wright Field near Dayton, Ohio for further examination and flight testing by the Air Corp. I would guess that rigorous flight testing by the Army pilots would quickly reveal the P-38's problems as well as further demonstrate its advanced capabilities and potential. Even if the XP-38 would've ended up being lost in flight testing at Wright Field while being put through high speed dives I think that on the strength of the flight test results shown the P-38 program would receive greater support from the Air Corp. Then the XP-38 prototype, if still in existence or if not then a full size and aerodynamically accurate mock-up would likely be sent to the Langley wind tunnel facility by the end of 1939 for detailed examination. Resulting in a full 2 year head start over OTL on that long list of improvements the OTL P-38 required.
