hours and two minutes. Unfortunately, the engines lost power on the landing approach and in the emergency Kelsey pancaked on a nearby golf course. Kelsey was unhurt but the first XP-38 became a pile of rubble.
Kelsey took up the modified P-38 to prove to himself the need for the new compressibility dive brake. Flying from Burbank airport, he put the plane in a dive and soon encountered compressibility effects so extreme that he could not reach the dive flap switch. When the tail broke off and he was descending to low altitude at very high speed, Kelsey bailed out and broke a leg and sprained a wrist. He then became a believer in the dive flap.
Thousands of P-38s already were in service by that time, ofcourse, so in addition to incorporating the new flap into production design, we turned out dive flaps for the planes already overseas. For the U.S. Eighth Air Force in England, we sent 487 sets, along with aileron boosters and improvements for engine cooling at high altitude, that would make the P-38 the most maneuverable fighter in the world. It could have outclimbed, outrun, outmaneuvered, and outgunned any other airplane by a factor of two.
The modification kits were loaded aboard a military C-54 transport. As the plane was approaching the coast of Ireland, it was sighted and shot down by RAF fighters who mistook it for one of the German four-engine Condors that were threatening our convoys. The dive flaps never were put into service with the Eighth Air Force. But they were used in the Pacific later in the war.
We had another tragic loss although without the irony of being self-inflicted. A convoy with a ship-load of P-38s—more than 400—was headed for Murmansk and the Soviet Union when a submarine sank the ship. Those aircraft would have been our contribution to the Battle of Stalingrad. Both of these losses were at key periods of the war when the superior performance of the aircraft would have made a real difference.
Special highly-streamlined fuel tanks to extend range were introduced on the P-38. With 300-gallon tanks, the P-38 could fly more than 3,000 miles nonstop, unrefueled. Test pilot Milo Burcham said he made the flight on seven candy bars and one sandwich. The tanks were useful in combat during the last stages of the war in Europe and particularly in the Pacific. They also had other uses; for example, with the nose removable they became ambulance planes, capable of carrying a litter with a wounded soldier in an emergency.
The P-38 had acquired a troubled reputation because of compressibility, and some Air Corps pilots were reluctant to fly them. To counteract this, Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier was assigned by General Doolittle to tour air bases in the US and in England to demonstrate the aircraft’s capabilities. Tony, a daring pilot who knew exactly what he could get out of an airplane,did everything possible, including single-engine performance, in convincing demonstrations for the young military pilots.
Not only a top-notch fighter, the P-38 became very versatile—as camera plane, bomber-fighter, strafer, rocket-carrier. It went through 18 different versions, the last carrying a bomb load greater than the early B-17 Flying Fortress. It had excellent stall characteristics because of wing design and was particularly effective in combat against the Japanese Zero. The P-38 pilot could slow down to near-nothing airspeed, pull back on one engine, cartwheel without stalling, and reverse direction to face his adversary.
After the P-38, Lockheed built the XP-58. This was much larger than the P-38, almost the equivalent in weight and power of a four-engine plane. It carried a 75-mm cannon, with a cannoneer stationed behind the pilot.
Its role was to knock down big bombers, and it certainly could have if it hit the mark with that 75-mm cannon. We got the airspeed up to 450 mph, and the plane flew well. But it was very heavy and expensive. We built only two of them as experimental aircraft.
Because of the
Kelsey took up the modified P-38 to prove to himself the need for the new compressibility dive brake. Flying from Burbank airport, he put the plane in a dive and soon encountered compressibility effects so extreme that he could not reach the dive flap switch. When the tail broke off and he was descending to low altitude at very high speed, Kelsey bailed out and broke a leg and sprained a wrist. He then became a believer in the dive flap.
Thousands of P-38s already were in service by that time, ofcourse, so in addition to incorporating the new flap into production design, we turned out dive flaps for the planes already overseas. For the U.S. Eighth Air Force in England, we sent 487 sets, along with aileron boosters and improvements for engine cooling at high altitude, that would make the P-38 the most maneuverable fighter in the world. It could have outclimbed, outrun, outmaneuvered, and outgunned any other airplane by a factor of two.
The modification kits were loaded aboard a military C-54 transport. As the plane was approaching the coast of Ireland, it was sighted and shot down by RAF fighters who mistook it for one of the German four-engine Condors that were threatening our convoys. The dive flaps never were put into service with the Eighth Air Force. But they were used in the Pacific later in the war.
We had another tragic loss although without the irony of being self-inflicted. A convoy with a ship-load of P-38s—more than 400—was headed for Murmansk and the Soviet Union when a submarine sank the ship. Those aircraft would have been our contribution to the Battle of Stalingrad. Both of these losses were at key periods of the war when the superior performance of the aircraft would have made a real difference.
Special highly-streamlined fuel tanks to extend range were introduced on the P-38. With 300-gallon tanks, the P-38 could fly more than 3,000 miles nonstop, unrefueled. Test pilot Milo Burcham said he made the flight on seven candy bars and one sandwich. The tanks were useful in combat during the last stages of the war in Europe and particularly in the Pacific. They also had other uses; for example, with the nose removable they became ambulance planes, capable of carrying a litter with a wounded soldier in an emergency.
The P-38 had acquired a troubled reputation because of compressibility, and some Air Corps pilots were reluctant to fly them. To counteract this, Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier was assigned by General Doolittle to tour air bases in the US and in England to demonstrate the aircraft’s capabilities. Tony, a daring pilot who knew exactly what he could get out of an airplane,did everything possible, including single-engine performance, in convincing demonstrations for the young military pilots.
Not only a top-notch fighter, the P-38 became very versatile—as camera plane, bomber-fighter, strafer, rocket-carrier. It went through 18 different versions, the last carrying a bomb load greater than the early B-17 Flying Fortress. It had excellent stall characteristics because of wing design and was particularly effective in combat against the Japanese Zero. The P-38 pilot could slow down to near-nothing airspeed, pull back on one engine, cartwheel without stalling, and reverse direction to face his adversary.
After the P-38, Lockheed built the XP-58. This was much larger than the P-38, almost the equivalent in weight and power of a four-engine plane. It carried a 75-mm cannon, with a cannoneer stationed behind the pilot.
Its role was to knock down big bombers, and it certainly could have if it hit the mark with that 75-mm cannon. We got the airspeed up to 450 mph, and the plane flew well. But it was very heavy and expensive. We built only two of them as experimental aircraft.
Because of the
Similar Books
