The Friday Flyby - 17 January

Lightning Encounter
Nicolas Trudgian

I was not surprised when I found the painting above and saw that it was another masterpiece from Mr Trudgian. The man can paint!

Wikipedia -

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a World War II American fighter aircraft built by Lockheed. Developed to a United States Army Air Corps requirement, the P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a single, central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament. Named "fork-tailed devil" (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, the P-38 was used in a number of roles, including dive bombing, level bombing, ground-attack, night fighting, photoreconnaissance missions, 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 mount of America's top aces, Richard Bong (40 victories) and Thomas McGuire (38 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.

The P-38 was unusually quiet for a fighter, the exhaust 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 slow for it to excel as a dogfighter. The P-38 was the only American fighter aircraft in production throughout American involvement in the war, from Pearl Harbor to Victory over Japan Day.

Sayonara Zeke!

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning

If you love the P-38, how about FIVE P-38s!

Some of you may have seen the next video before (I posted it last year) but I liked it so much, I thought I'd post it again. I mean it does have a P-38 AND a Corsair. Great video!

One of the things I always found surprising about the P-38's cockpit was the control wheel (later a yoke), rather than the more normal "stick" you see in most fighter aircraft.

Cockpit of Glacier Girl

P-38 with Control Yoke

Glacier Girl

On July 15, 1942, a flight of six P-38s and two B-17 bombers, with a total of 25 crew members on board, took off from Presque Isle Air Base in Maine headed for the U.K. What followed was a harrowing and life-threatening landing of the entire squadron on a remote ice cap in Greenland. Miraculously, none of the crew was lost and they were all rescued and returned safely home after spending several days on the desolate ice.

Fifty years later a small group of aviation enthusiasts decided to locate those aircraft, which had come to be known as "The Lost Squadron," and to recover one of the lost P-38s. It turned out to be no easy task, as the planes had been buried under 25 stories of ice and drifted over a mile from their original location. - Wikipedia

Glacier Girl where they found her...

What her cockpit looked like back then (see her cockpit photo above)

Glacier Girl after restoration. She looks good!

Many of you might remember that Brigadier General Robin Olds is one of my favorite pilots. As I'm an old 8th Tac Fighter Wing guy and he commanded the wing in SE Asia, it seems natural.

Robin Olds

Here's something I didn't know -

Robin Olds was the last P-38 ace in the Eighth Air Force and the last in the ETO. Flying a P-38J, he downed five German fighters on two separate missions over France and Germany. He subsequently transitioned to P-51s and scored seven more kills. After World War II, he flew F-4 Phantom IIs in Vietnam, ending his career as brigadier general with 16 kills. - Wikipedia

P-38J

Another aviation legend met his fate while flying the P-38 -

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, officially Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944, Mort pour la France), was a French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of several of France's highest literary awards and also won the U.S. National Book Award. He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Night Flight.

Saint-Exupéry was a successful commercial pilot before World War II, working airmail routes in Europe, Africa and South America. At the outbreak of war, he joined the French Air Force (Armée de l'Air), flying reconnaissance missions until France's armistice with Germany in 1940. After being demobilised from the French Air Force, he travelled to the United States to persuade its government to enter the war against Nazi Germany. Following a 27-month hiatus in North America, during which he wrote three of his most important works, he joined the Free French Air Force in North Africa, although he was far past the maximum age for such pilots and in declining health. He disappeared over the Mediterranean on his last assigned reconnaissance mission in July 1944, and is believed to have died at that time. - Wikipedia

A fascinating man, you can read more about him here.

One of the legendary accomplishments of the Lightning was the downing of the aircraft carrying the Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku (山本 五十六). (Note that in Japan, as in Korea, the family name is listed first. A convention I always follow.)

Admiral Yamamoto

To boost morale following the defeat at Guadalcanal, Yamamoto decided to make an inspection tour throughout the South Pacific. On 14 April 1943, the US naval intelligence effort, code-named "Magic", intercepted and decrypted a message containing specific details regarding Yamamoto's tour, including arrival and departure times and locations, as well as the number and types of planes that would transport and accompany him on the journey. Yamamoto, the itinerary revealed, would be flying from Rabaul to Balalae Airfield, on an island near Bougainville in the Solomon Islands, on the morning of 18 April 1943.

On the morning of 18 April, despite urgings by local commanders to cancel the trip for fear of ambush, Yamamoto's two Mitsubishi G4M bombers used as fast transport aircraft without bombs left Rabaul as scheduled for the 315 mi (507 km) trip. Sixteen Lightnings intercepted the flight over Bougainville and a dogfight ensued between them and the six escorting Mitsubishi A6M Zeroes. First Lieutenant Rex T. Barber engaged the first of the two Japanese transports which turned out to be Yamamoto's plane. He targeted the aircraft with gunfire until it began to spew smoke from its left engine. Barber turned away to attack the other transport as Yamamoto's plane crashed into the jungle. - Wikipedia

Operation Vengeance
(Read more here.)

One of the earliest stories I remember my Dad telling me concerned the P-38.

I had just received a toy Lightning (either for my birthday or Christmas, I don't remember which) and my Dad told me the story of a friend of his who became a P-38 pilot back during the Second World War.

Seems his friend had not survived the war, he had been killed bailing out of his crippled P-38. Seems the bird had a bad reputation for killing its pilots if they had to jump. My Dad's buddy had hit the horizontal empennage, which some pilots called the "cheese knife".

As with any machine, there's a right way and a wrong way to do things. Which led me to this video -

This also reminded me of the briefing I received from the crew chief when I went on my aerobatic flight in the SNJ-6: "If the pilot says jump, pull back the canopy, hit that quick release on the harness and dive over the right side of the aircraft head first. Aim for the trailing edge of the wing. Then when you're clear, pull that D-ring. If your chute doesn't open, we'll refund your money."

Then my back-seater (the guy actually flying the plane) chimed in, "And if I say jump, don't ask any questions, because you'll be talking to yourself."

Aviation humor. I love it...

Porky II and Glacier Girl

The Red Bull P-38

My buddy "Spill" likes these cutaway views...
(So do I!)

P-38s out at Chino in 2010

P-38 in fine company...
(Four of my favorites!)

And you thought I wouldn't manage to squeeze in an F-4...