The P-38 Lightning also had a distinguished service record in the European Theater as well. It served as a long-range escort fighter, a ground attack aircraft, and a reconnaissance aircraft.
There was a massive redesign of the P-38's engine setup between the earlier G and intermediate H version, and the later J and L. The leading edge intercoolers were replaced with fuel tanks because they were rendered inadequate by the increased horsepower. This is why the engine nacelles on the J and L had a different profile. They included a much more capable intercooler below the engine itself.
Also, a better metric for performance at altitude would have been a comparison between horsepower, not level speed. The P-38's horsepower up to its critical altitude went largely unchanged, unlike with exclusively supercharger-boosted engine setups such as on the Spitfire.
Plus, even with purely supercharged designs, there were ways to prevent excessive throttling loses, either by using a hydraulically coupled supercharger, or a swirl throttle.
On the topic of compressibility: It wasn't just the change in flow over the wings themselves. The changed characteristics also caused the tailplane to encounter flow at a higher angle of attack, therefore actually increasing lift on the tail and thereby pushing the nose more steeply into compressibility.
In the late 80’s, I was a Mechanical Engineering student at UCSB. Our Dynamics professor was Dr. Miriam, who had semi retired from UCB. If you took Dynamics at any university in the 80’s, it’s likely you used his textbook. He told us a story about the P-38. He was a young design engineer at Lockheed during WWII. When the P-38 started flying in combat, several crashed and the pilot’s were found decapitated. They were all grounded. The engineers found that a flywheel in the starboard engine was shearing its shaft and flying right at the pilot’s head. The design engineers had failed to take into account the angular momentum force generated by some sort of combat turn. The shaft was redesigned and retrofitted. This was his verbal introduction to the chapter on Angular Momentum. He used to lecture right from the book. But he had lots of these stories that weren’t written.
The P-38 is and most likely always will be the most beautiful airplane ever built, at least to me. Seeing and hearing it fly is always an experience unlike any other.
17:20 This was a problem, but the real problem was directional stability. The plane wanted to put the tailwheel in front, so if you let it go too far the plane can "spin out" on the runway. Something called a ground loop.
Hey, at around 20:58 you say that "The Zero was covered in fabric", that simply isn't true, only the control surfaces were fabric covered on some areas, everything else was duralumin.
9:24 The P-47 was not designed for primarily ground attack. It was a fighter/interceptor first, and when the US Army Air Corps realized how good it could be at ground attack, they began using it for this role too. It was heavily armed with eight .50 caliber BMGs, and the plane had heavy armor surrounding the pilot making the P-47 very hard to shoot down. That "larger, bulkier, air cooled engine" was twice as powerful as most of those sleek inline engines. The air cooled engine was chosen for its reliability, durability, and power as it could take multiple hits and keep running. Many P-47s made it back home after their engines being shot and losing multiple cylinders. The Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp made over 2000 hp with later versions making over 2500 hp with water injection. The P-47 had one of the highest service ceilings and could out dive most any fighter at the time. This made it a deadly 'boom and zoom' fighter. For all of these reasons, the P-47 shot down the second most enemy aircraft during WWII behind the P-51 Mustang. People don't give the respect the P-47 deserves due to lack of understanding of the design choices. It was made to not only shoot down aircraft, bu
If you were intrigued by Kelly Johnson and Skunk Works, I highly recommend reading Skunk Works by Ben Rich. It's his memoir of his time at the company, and how he eventually took the reigns of it from Kelly after he named Ben his successor. It's a great read that details what it was like working for, and with, Kelly Johnson, and the impact Kelly had on the industry as a whole. It also provides a look behind the curtain into some of the US's most top secret programs, such as the U-2 spy plane, F-117 Nighthawk and SR-71 Blackbird. Very interesting and well written book, and one I consider a must-read for warplane enthusiasts.
The wing mounted intercoolers were only present on the pre J model 38s. The P-38 J and L moved the intercooler from the wing to the boom, this changed the forward profile of the boom to have three intake ports, instead of two found in early models. This slightly increased drag but drastically increased engine performance and had the added benefit of allowing more fuel for increased range.
The information provided for the video is good, but not completely accurate for the design being shown.
The P-47 was NOT built for ground attack. It was built for high altitude performance but was used in ground attack at the end of the war because it was rugged.
9:24 slight correction, the P-47 was designed from the outset to be a high altitude fighter, but all those characteristics described also made it very good at ground attack.
A badass WW2 beast. When they accidently engaged against Soviet Yaks near Niš, they were confused with German FW-189s, and there was no clear winner during this friendly fire fight.
When I was a kid my Grandpa and I built a plastic model kit of this plane and decades later would see him holding it to ‘fly’ it around the living room like he was as a kid. Miss him!
I still find it mind-blowing that the same person, in a single career had a role in designing both this and the F-117, just the pace of change from WW2 to the end of the cold war was nuts.
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Also, a better metric for performance at altitude would have been a comparison between horsepower, not level speed. The P-38's horsepower up to its critical altitude went largely unchanged, unlike with exclusively supercharger-boosted engine setups such as on the Spitfire.
Plus, even with purely supercharged designs, there were ways to prevent excessive throttling loses, either by using a hydraulically coupled supercharger, or a swirl throttle.
On the topic of compressibility: It wasn't just the change in flow over the wings themselves. The changed characteristics also caused the tailplane to encounter flow at a higher angle of attack, therefore actually increasing lift on the tail and thereby pushing the nose more steeply into compressibility.
The information provided for the video is good, but not completely accurate for the design being shown.