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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 ...
The squadron used Lockheed P-38 Lightning aircraft photo-reconnaissance variant F-5 throughout the war. The F-5 and F-5A were used from the summer of 1943 until the summer of 1944 when F-5B, F-5C, and F-5E Lightnings were brought in. All P-38 Lightning variants were used for the remainder of the war.
O-57 Grasshopper at the National Museum of the United States Air Force A de Havilland Mosquito PR Mk XVI (F-8) of the 654th BS, Eighth Air Force at RAF Watton, 1944 North American B-25D (F-10) Mitchell photographic reconnaissance and mapping aircraft North American P-51C-5-NT Mustang (F-6C) Serial No 42-103368 of the 15th TRS at St. Dizler Airfield, France, Autumn 1944.
Thanks in large part to the advocacy of the Director of Photographic Intelligence, the also very controversial Colonel Minton Kaye, a run of 100 Lockheed P-38 Lightnings were set aside for modification to F-4 standard, incorporating the trigonometric mount that both Kaye and Cotton had pioneered prior to the war. Despite the promising ...
The American F-4, a factory modification of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, replaced the nose-mounted four machine guns and cannon with four high-quality K-17 cameras. Approximately 120 F-4 and F-4As were hurriedly made available by March 1942, reaching the 8th Photographic Squadron in Australia by April (the first P-38s to see action).
This was followed by the "B" camera with a 36-inch-focal-length (910 mm) lens with F/10 and image motion compensation, resolving 100 lines per mm, and the ground resolution can be inferred by calculation to be 9.1 inches (23 cm). It was a panoramic camera which took pictures of an extremely large area of the earth's surface.
The first P-38 of the Compañía de Aviación Air army arrived in Santiago on 30 March 1947. It was its first modern aircraft. The air force of this small Latin American republic employed 11 Lightnings, mostly not armed. Dominican Republic was one of the last P-38's users until late 1950, when the remaining Lightnings were cut up and dumped. [3]
The only fighter aircraft then in the Southwest Pacific with sufficient range to escort bombers to and from Rabaul and Wewak was the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. However, the limited P-38 strength in the Fifth Air Force in April 1943 consisted of only three squadrons, (the 80th Fighter Squadron of the 8th Fighter Group; the 39th Fighter Squadron of ...