Lockheed P-38 Lightning

The P-38 Lightning was a twin-engined, twin-boom long range fighter and fighter-bomber, produced throughout World War II.

Lockheed P-38H-5-LO in flight (S/N 42-67079) with Red Surround Insignia. (U.S. Air Force photo)
Lockheed P-38H-5-LO in flight (S/N 42-67079) with Red Surround Insignia. (U.S. Air Force photo)

From Wikipedia:

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning is a World War II-era American piston-engined fighter aircraft. Developed for the United States Army Air Corps, the P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a central nacellecontaining the cockpit and armament. Allied propaganda claimed it had been nicknamed the fork-tailed devil (German: der Gabelschwanz-Teufel) by the Luftwaffe and “two planes, one pilot” (2飛行機、1パイロット Ni hikōki, ippairotto) by the Japanese.[6] The P-38 was used for interception, dive bombinglevel bombingground attacknight fightingphoto reconnaissance, radar and visual pathfinding for bombers and evacuation missions,[7] and extensively as a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks under its wings.

The P-38 was used most successfully in the Pacific Theater of Operations and the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations as the aircraft of America’s top acesRichard Bong (40 victories), Thomas McGuire(38 victories) and Charles H. MacDonald (27 victories). In the South West Pacific theater, the P-38 was the primary long-range fighter of United States Army Air Forces until the appearance of large numbers of P-51D Mustangs toward the end of the war.[8][9]

The P-38 was unusually quiet for a fighter, since the exhaust was muffled by the turbo-superchargers. It was extremely forgiving and could be mishandled in many ways but the rate of roll in the early versions was too low for it to excel as a dogfighter.[10] The P-38 was the only American fighter aircraft in large-scale production throughout American involvement in the war, from Pearl Harbor to Victory over Japan Day.[11] At the end of the war, orders for 1,887 more were cancelled.[12]

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