Best Aircraft in Many Different Roles Part II

[the lancaster kicks ass]

well i don't know exactly what is was!! it could easy carry 4,000lbs i suppose but do you get my point??

[cheddar cheese]

NO I dont, cos Ive just stated that the normal load for a P-38 was higher than that of a B-25...which proves my point.

[plan_D]

The B-25 C/D carried 5,200 lbs of bombs, on a normal run. The 3,200 lbs load is for the late marks, such as J and H. The J had the nose filled with .50 cal though, and was not a bomber as such, it had twelve .50 cal in the glass nose and eighteen in the solid nose.

The H had the 75mm cannon, so obviously could not carry the full bomb load. The B-25 could obviously carry more than the P-38, you'd be foolish to think otherwise.

[GermansRGeniuses]

Originally Posted by the lancaster kicks ass

it's not the fighter part that's significant, the P-38 was a twin engined aircraft, 5,200lbs is not specail for a twin engined plane.............

Corsairs could carry up to 4,000...



Au-1 Corsairs could carry something like 7,000, but that was in Korea.

[Yeomanz]

a corsair with 2000kg's takeing off now thats something to see

[cheddar cheese]

Originally Posted by plan_D

The B-25 C/D carried 5,200 lbs of bombs, on a normal run. The 3,200 lbs load is for the late marks, such as J and H. The J had the nose filled with .50 cal though, and was not a bomber as such, it had twelve .50 cal in the glass nose and eighteen in the solid nose.

The H had the 75mm cannon, so obviously could not carry the full bomb load. The B-25 could obviously carry more than the P-38, you'd be foolish to think otherwise.

Ah right, I never looked into the early marks. Thanks for that.

[wmaxt]

Originally Posted by GermansRGeniuses

Corsairs could carry up to 4,000...



Au-1 Corsairs could carry something like 7,000, but that was in Korea.

Actully the F4U-1 originaly was not rated to carry anything, By the F4U-1d? it had a 2,000lbs load limit.

TheF-4U-4 was rated at 4,000lbs and was sometines loadded out in the 5,000lbs range.

By Korea the F4U-5 was in common use, It was also a dedicated attack aircraft that rarely broke 400mph. I don't recall load limits but they may have been in the 7,000lbs range. The issue with the Corsair was limited hard points - that's where the Skyraider came in.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by cheddar cheese

Well, lets put 'dogfight' in inverted commas. The Ju-88 could.

Ok, almost any fighter can carry bombs, buit name me another fighter that can carry 5,200lbs of bombs?

Yeah but the Ju-88 was not much of a dogfighter though. It was a good night fighter but not a dog fighter. For me the Ju-88 is the ultimate aircraft to use in different roles though. Mostly just oppionion though.

As for the P-61 from what I have read it rarely carried bombs but it could carry a load of 3200lb to 6400lb of bombs.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

there's a specail feature on the P-61 in the current flypast.............

[cheddar cheese]

As was mentioned many weeks ago by someone else...

[cheddar cheese]

Heres a few things I never knew about the P-38...

It was the first fighter that was able to fly from Britain to Berlin and back while escorting bombers.

One of the initial production P-38s had its turbochargers removed, with a secondary cockpit placed in one of the booms to examine how flightcrew would respond to such an "asymmetric" cockpit layout. One P-38E was fitted with an extended central nacelles to accommodate a tandem-seat cockpit with dual controls, and was later fitted with a "laminar-flow" wing.

Very early in the Pacific War, a scheme was proposed to fit Lightnings with floats to allow them to make long-range ferry flights. The floats would be removed before the aircraft went into combat. There were concerns that salt spray would corrode the tailplane, and so one P-38E was modified with a raised tailplane and a rearward-facing second seat for an observer to monitor the effectiveness of the new arrangement.
This P-38E was not actually fitted with floats, and the idea was quickly abandoned as the US Navy proved to have enough sealift capacity to keep up with P-38 deliveries to the South Pacific.


Still another P-38E was used in 1942 to tow a Waco troop glider as a demonstration. There proved to be plenty of other aircraft, such as Douglas C-47s Dakotas, available to tow gliders, and the Lightning was spared this duty.

An F-5A was modified to an experimental two-seat reconnaissance configuration, with additional cameras in the tail booms.

Standard Lightnings were even used as crew and cargo transports in the South Pacific. They were fitted with pods attached to the underwing pylons, replacing drop tanks or bombs, that could carry a single passenger in a lying-down position or cargo.
This was very uncomfortable way to fly. Some of the pods weren't even fitted with a window to let the victim see out or bring in light. One fellow who hitched a lift on a P-38 in one of these pods later said that whoever designed the damn thing should have been forced to ride in it.


Lockheed proposed a carrier-based "Model 822" version of the Lightning for the US Navy. The Model 822 would have featured folding wings, an arresting hook, and stronger undercarriage for carrier operations. The Navy wasn't interested, as they regarded the Lightning as too big for carrier operations and didn't like liquid-cooled engines anyway, and the Model 822 never went beyond the paper stage. However, the Navy did operate four land-based F-5Bs in North Africa, with these aircraft inherited from the USAAF and redesignated "FO-1".

A single P-38G was captured intact by the Italians during the war when the pilot landed at an Italian base by mistake, and this Lightning was flown in combat against Allied aircraft, but this aircraft was quickly grounded due to lack of parts. Two Lightnings that were forced to land in Lisbon, Portugal, while on a ferry flight from England to Algeria were interned and operated by the Portugese, apparently with American blessing.

A P-38J was used in experiments with an unusual scheme for mid-air refueling, in which the fighter snagged a drop tank trailed on a cable from a bomber! Astonishingly, they got this to work, but unsurprisingly decided it wasn't practical. A P-38J was also fitted with experimental retractable snow ski landing gear, but this idea never reached operational service, either.

A P-38L was modified by Hindustan Aircraft in India as a fast VIP transport, with a comfortable seat in the nose, leather-lined walls, accommodations for "refreshments", and a glazed nose to give the passenger a spectacular view.

After the war, a P-38L was experimentally fitted with armament of three 15.2 millimeter (0.60 caliber) machine guns. This sounds like a misprint, but such guns were actually developed. The 15.2 millimeter cartridge had been developed early in the war for an infantry "anti-tank rifle", a type of weapon developed by a number of nations in the 1930s when tanks were lighter, but by 1942 the idea of taking on a tank with a large-caliber rifle was somewhere between "outdated" and "suicidal".
The cartridge wasn't abandoned, with the Americans designing a derivative of the German MG-151 15 millimeter machine gun around it and designating the weapon the "T17", but though 300 of these guns were built and over six million 15.2 millimeter rounds were manufactured, they never worked out all the bugs, and the T17 never saw operational service. The cartridge was "necked up" to fit 20 millimeter projectiles and became a standard US ammunition after the war. The T17-armed P-38L did not go beyond unsuccessful trials.


Another P-38L was modified after the war as a "super strafer", with eight 12.7 millimeter machine guns in the nose and a pod under each wing with two 12.7 millimeter guns, for a total of twelve. Nothing came of this fit, either.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

It was deffinatly a nice aircraft and one of the best of the war and one of the best ever built.

[cheddar cheese]

Yeah, that I will easily agree with.

[wmaxt]

Originally Posted by cheddar cheese

Yeah, that I will easily agree with.

Me Too!

They also had a Smoke layer model.

CC have you seen the "Planes and Pilots of WWII" web page or the "P38 (CC Jordan:Mankind: CDB100620) sites? There is some great stuff there that includes information Warren Bodie dug up that was never published until 1990 in his book.
http://yarchive.net/mil/p38.html

[cheddar cheese]

Sounds great! Ill have to check that out!