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The Lockheed Corporation designed the P-38 in response to a February 1937 specification from the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Circular Proposal X-608 was a set of aircraft performance goals authored by First Lieutenants Benjamin S. Kelsey and Gordon P. Saville for a twin-engined, high-altitude "interceptor" having "the tactical mission of interception and attack of hostile aircraft at ...
P-38L 44-53232 at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. The Lockheed P-38 Lightning is an American two-engine fighter used by the United States Army Air Forces and other Allied air forces during World War II. Of the 10,037 planes built, 26 survive today, 22 of which are located in the United States, and 10 of which are airworthy.
All entrants in the new pursuit competition were designed around it, powering the Lockheed P-38, Bell P-39 and Curtiss P-40. When war material procurement agents from the United Kingdom asked North American Aviation to build the P-40 under license, NAA instead proposed their own improved aircraft design, using the V-1710 in their NA-73.
Italian P-38s made their operational debut on 9 September 1948, when a single F-5 took photographs of objectives in the Balkans. [6] Because of the big dimensions of this fighter, the old engines, and pilot errors, a very high number of P-38s were lost in accidents. At least thirty crashes of P-38s in Italian service claimed a number of victims.
The Lockheed XP-49 (company Model 522) was an advancement on the P-38 Lightning for a fighter in response to U.S. Army Air Corps proposal 39-775. Intended to use the new 24-cylinder Pratt & Whitney X-1800 engine, this proposal, which was for an aircraft substantially similar to the P-38, was assigned the designation XP-49, while the competing Grumman Model G-46 was awarded second place and ...
Initially intended as a very long-range (VLR) escort fighter, the F-82 was designed to escort Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers on missions exceeding 2,000 mi (3,200 km) from the Solomon Islands or Philippines to Tokyo, missions beyond the range of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning and conventional P-51 Mustangs.
The aircraft is named after the Second World War vintage Lockheed P-38 Lightning, with which it shares its dual tail layout. [1] [2] The aircraft is made from aluminum tubing, with the wing leading edge made from birch plywood, supported by foam and wooden wing ribs. The wings and tail surfaces are covered in doped aircraft fabric.
[48] [57] [58] As was also the case with the Bell P-39 Airacobra, many USAAF officers considered the P-40 exceptional but it was gradually replaced by the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and the North American P-51 Mustang. The bulk of the fighter operations by the USAAF in 1942–43 were borne by the P-40 and the P-39.