{"id":37243,"date":"2017-04-29T23:17:52","date_gmt":"2017-04-30T03:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoestenmodel.club\/wp\/?post_type=dt_gallery&p=37243"},"modified":"2017-04-29T23:17:52","modified_gmt":"2017-04-30T03:17:52","slug":"lockheed-p-38l-lightning","status":"publish","type":"dt_gallery","link":"https:\/\/hoestenmodel.club\/wp\/dt_gallery\/lockheed-p-38l-lightning\/","title":{"rendered":"Lockheed P-38L Lightning"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lockheed P-38L Lightning<\/h1>\n
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Courtesy of Randy Malmstrom<\/a><\/abbr><\/abbr><\/div>\n
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Lockheed P-38L Lightning, s\/n 44-53186 (no name). This particular aircraft was built at Lockheed’s Burbank plant and delivered to the U.S. Army Air Corps in July 1945 but it did not see combat action. Rather, it was sent to Dallas, Texas where it was converted to an F-5G photo reconnaissance aircraft (1\/8 of Lightnings were so converted). It was sold as scrap in 1946 for $1,200, used for aerial mapping and surveying until 1967. It exchanged hands over the years – it was in the U.K. for a time painted in camouflage as “Miss Behavin'” and later displayed at Harrah’s in Reno, Nevada. This has been painted with the markings of Lt. Col. Gerald R. “Jerry” Johnson who was first assigned to the 57th Pursuit Squadron of the 54th Pursuit Group based at Everett, Washington. The group moved to Alaska and Johnson flew 38 combat missions with it in Bell P-39 Airacobras and Curtiss P-40 Warhawks. He was assigned to the 9th Fighter Squadron “Flying Knights” of the 49th Fighter Group in New Guinea from April 1943 to January 1944 flying P-38’s. On October 7, 1945, Johnson and his copilot were killed while flying a B-25 out of Atsugi Air Base, Japan. The aircraft encountered a typhoon and Johnson gave the order to bail out and gave up his parachute to a crew member who did not have one – his copilot remained onboard to try to assist getting the aircraft home. He was credited with 22 victories and awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, Air Medal, and Legion of Merit. This aircraft has been on static display at Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum but it has been acquired by Collings Foundation with a view to make it airworthy. My photos.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Army Air Corps considered naming the P-38 the “Atlanta” (I have been told this is a myth), but rather adopted the British name “Lightning.” The Luftwaffe pilots nicknamed it “der Gabelschwanz-Teufel” (forked devil, although I have been told that this is also a myth), and Japanese pilots referred to it as “two planes, one pilot” or “devil with double-body.” When it was introduced into service by 1941, the P-38 was innovative for its time, not the least of which for its tricycle landing gear, cockpit located in a central nacelle (cockpit temperature was difficult to control), twin-boom configuration and the ability to achieve speeds in excess of 400 mph. The fact that the primary weapons – including .50 cal. machine guns and a 20 mm cannon – were centrally concentrated in the nose meant there was no issue of convergence sighting of weapons in the wings (it was point-and-shoot). Pylon racks could carry drop tanks or bombs. Powered by supercharged Allison V-1710 engines with counter-rotating propellers to help mitigate torque. The retractable pilot ladder and handle can be seen at the back end on the bottom and top of the central nacelle. Late in World War II, many U.S. aircraft were fitted with AN\/APS-13 post-and-loop warning radar on the tail fin. On the P-38 it was attached to the lower section of the starboard fin. This detected aircraft in a narrow arc up to 2,000 ft. behind the pilot. There was an alarm bell and light in the cockpit that were triggered. Unfortunately, below about 4,000 ft. the system tended to give ground reports and the alarms would go off – and of course it could not differentiate friend from foe.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lockheed P-38L Lightning Courtesy of Randy Malmstrom Lockheed P-38L Lightning, s\/n 44-53186 (no name). This particular aircraft was built at Lockheed’s Burbank plant and delivered to the U.S. Army Air Corps in July 1945 but it did not see combat action. Rather, it was sent to Dallas, Texas where it was converted to an F-5G…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","dt_gallery_category":[117],"class_list":["post-37243","dt_gallery","type-dt_gallery","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","dt_gallery_category-reference","dt_gallery_category-117","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoestenmodel.club\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dt_gallery\/37243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoestenmodel.club\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dt_gallery"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoestenmodel.club\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/dt_gallery"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoestenmodel.club\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoestenmodel.club\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hoestenmodel.club\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dt_gallery\/37243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37279,"href":"https:\/\/hoestenmodel.club\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dt_gallery\/37243\/revisions\/37279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoestenmodel.club\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoestenmodel.club\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"dt_gallery_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoestenmodel.club\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dt_gallery_category?post=37243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}