Best Aircraft in many different roles

[cheddar cheese]

Good points.

[Medvedya]

Do they have a website for that Mosquito project?

[Lightning Guy]

The 14 rocket installation wasn't the "Christmas tree" arrangement. That arrangement carried 10 rockets in two inverted Christmas trees. The 14 rocket scheme had to be abandoned since it required structural changes to the wing. Additionally, the zero length launchers could not be removed adding permanent weight and drag. Also, will the P-38 was normally limited to the 2 hard points, planes with the field were often modified to take a total of 6 hard points and 6 500lb bombs were regularly carried.

[Gemhorse]

Unfortunately there is no direct site for the Mosquito Construction going on in Auckland, NZ, but it is generating alot of interest worldwide...
Warbird websites around NZ have some stuff updating developments, and I think www.mossie.org , the main Mosquito website worldwide, has note of the developments...
As I understand it, Glyn Powell, the chap whose behind it all, got the remains of one of our serving Mossies years ago, and became determined to build from scratch...He made the moulds for the fuselage from original drawings etc. [ the first person to do so since the War] and one of the first sets made are off to Canada to their Mosquito Restoration Group, who are also very pro-active about this Development Program...
- Out of 31 worldwide survivors, NZ has about 6, and after RR299 crashed in 1996 in the UK, [ the last flying Mosquito], it's galvanizing the whole Mosquito Restoration Movement to get them flying again....

The best PR aircraft were Spitfires and Mosquitos, a role they carried-out right through the War....and although they were not intially designed as a pure fighter, at the time of it's maiden flight, the Mosquito was faster than the current Allied fighters....so they made 3 main variants off the same mould; - PR [un-armed]; Fast bomber [un-armed]; and the Fighter/bomber, with 4x20mm and 4x.303.....and what awesome service they got from these incredible, inexpensive aircraft !!!

All this occurred earlier in the War, the P-38 came into it's own in the PTO, MTO, but the ETO was really the P-51's ballpark as escort fighter, the P-38 pilots suffered from no heating at altitude...and it never undertook NF duties in the ETO, that was ALWAYS the Mosquito's sphere of speciality....which it continued in, After the War....
- P.38's were scrapped at War's end...what you have left today is IT, and some are total rebuilds from wrecks....

Venturas served in Aussie and Kiwi AF's in the PTO, and with 4 forward-firing guns, carried-out many bombing and ground-attack sorties with P-40 and Corsair escorts....like I said, these 3 aircraft types did the majority of 'MOP-UP' Missions while the US Forces barrelled-on off up the Pacific....The Aussies also had some Mustangs, Mosquitos and some PR Lightnings [on loan]......

Mosquitos have earned their legendary place in History....
I personally preferred the Corsair to the P-38, as Best US Fighter/Bomber.........

[Lightning Guy]

There were something like 1200+ PR versions of the P-38 and that has to count for alot. Also, it flew in more theatres than the Mossie and that is important to.

As far as the Corsair is concerned, it was unable to match the P-38 in climb, dive, turn, payload, radius, or firepower and every other attribute would be pretty close.

[wmaxt]

Originally Posted by Lightning Guy

There were something like 1200+ PR versions of the P-38 and that has to count for alot. Also, it flew in more theatres than the Mossie and that is important to.

As far as the Corsair is concerned, it was unable to match the P-38 in climb, dive, turn, payload, radius, or firepower and every other attribute would be pretty close.

The F-4U4 was almost identicle in climb, claimed overload and top speed (check out the web page "Planes and Pilots of WWII") you'like the F-4U4 article as he showes the superiority of the Corsair he has lots of "Except for the P-38 excerpts. The 14 rocket P-38 was also a Cristmas tree and it did concentrate to much load on the wing, I was unaware the same determination was made with the zero length launchers.

I've never seen the multiple hard point P-38, do you have pic's?

[Lightning Guy]

I've got the pic in a magazine. I will try to get in on here but it will be a while before I could do that. There is a smaller hard point on either side of the standard hardpoint and all six are mounting a 500lb bomb. According to Warren Bodie's book that loadout was fairly common in the MTO.

[Gemhorse]

The P-38 provided a good long-range fighter in the PTO until the P-51D started to supercede it later in the War...and there was a few PR Lightnings, indeed...most long-range aircraft had that capability...but the Spitfire & Mosquito PR versions were UN-ARMED, so probably quicker....

As for the Corsair, well it did sterling work in the PTO, right in there at Okinawa with RP's, right through into Occupation Duties, and then they went to Korea, and did a Tour of Duty there, especially night ground-attack under flares just over the 38th parallel, cutting the N.Korean supply lines...... then they stopped producing them in 1953 but they stayed in service for a little while longer after that.........
- They scrapped the P-38's after Japan surrendered.....

As for NF P-38's, they must've put the guns somewhere else, because the gunflash, with or without tracer would've blinded the pilot...
- Mosquitos just deleted the 4x.303's, leaving the cannons which were housed right underneath them, and just the gun-flame from them came a few yards out in front....but with the Nav/Radar Op. scoping the tube, they could usually keep the target available.....

[cheddar cheese]

I think on the NF P-38's there was a special device fitted to the guns to reduce the flash, but I will have to look this up.

In the meanwhile, here is a rather sad photo I found in the album the other day.

[Lightning Guy]

The PR versions of the P-38 (except the one XF-5D) were all unarmed. Also, the P-38 carried a better assortment of cameras than either the Mossie of the Spit.

The P-38M, the NF version, had flash surpressors fitted to all guns.

Numerous aircraft were shortly after the war (that's what happens when wars end, weapons are destroyed). Countless Hellcats, Avengers, P-47s, Spits, Mossies, Forts, Lancs, Libs, and whatever else you care to name were sold, scrapped, or simply abandoned within the first few post-war years. Certainly that doesn't detract from the contribution these aircraft made to the war effort or their place in history. The outbreak of peace and the dawn of the jet age where the causes of these cutbacks.

As an added note, in August of 1945, the USAAF still had several thousand P-38Ls on order and a second factory (the Lockheed-Vega plant in Nashville) was just begining to turn out P-38s. The US was committed to continuing to use the P-38 for as long as the war continued. And it would have been of better use in the early days of Korea than the F-51 Mustangs.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

sadly we will never know that...............

[cheddar cheese]

Well if you look at what the F-51 done in Korea, you compare it to how the P-38 done it in WW2 and see which was better.

For instance, if its ground attack we're talking about then the P38 would have been better off than the F-51.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

the corsair was doing fine though, and the skyraider, a much better ground attack platform than the P-38,-51 AND corsair............

[cheddar cheese]

The Corsair and Skyraider are irrelevant. We're talking about the fact the the P-38 would have been far more effective than the F-51 during the early Korean war.

[lesofprimus]

Maybe one of u should bring this over to the Post WWII Section and start a thread about the best plane for the job in Korea....