Dogfighting in a P 38

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I'll give you the benefit of the doubt...
 
Hi Pbehn,

I know what you mean. I competed on motorcycles for 20 years and have heard various bikes described by different "riders" different ways. One rider remembered the Kawasaki 900 as unbeatable. I recall head shake and a LOT of frame flex, making it a bike that was both powerful as well as very scary when anywhere NEAR the limits of traction.

I quit road racing, after fixing and selling the 750 Suzuki, at age 44 after low-siding at 165 mph and sliding into hay bales somewhere about the middle of a turn. Thing is, I was mostly riding Observed Trials and really didn't have any business out on a paved road course anyway. I was doing it, "for fun," and it wasn't when you fell. Ruined a brand new $1,000 pair of Bates leathers, but also walked away sore instead of seriously injured. The leathers did their job, after a fashion, as did the Shoei helmet. Expensive afternoon for the wallet. But I was running in third at the time, so I think back on it with some fondness that was absent when it happened.

I couldn't use differential throttle to help turn because there was only one engine and the swingarm didn't flex like the old bikes! The Kawasaki 750 Triple had a LOT of frame and swingarm flex coupled with a very "pipey" engine setup that left the front end in the air at various odd times when all you wanted was a short acceleration to the next turn. When the front came down, it would head shake even with a steering damper! I hate tank slappers ... especially when I'm the rider! It certainly interferes with your style as a rider.

Maybe I hit "critical Mach! (Recall the 750 Triple was called a "Mach III"). Did you ever race a Suzuki 500 Titan Twin? Now there was an odd duck of a bike. Not remembering it with any special fondness, like with a Yamaha RD350.

I'd love to talk bikes and trade some "scares," but that might seriously wander off-topic in a P-38 Dogfighting thread, eh what? Back to P-38s ... and strange aerodynamic possibilities. I have definitely read that the elevator balances were completely unnecessary, but were placed there at the direction of the USAAF (or USAAC at the timne), specifically the commander of aircraft procurement. But I have no proof of same. I just read about that somewhere in the past. Can't recall quite where, but it seems like the source was a Ben Kelsey interview sometime post-war.

Good one, FlyboyJ!
 
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Hey FlyboyJ,

Being as observant as I am, I noticed the IA part of your sig (after all this time) and wanted to ask you a couple of questions.

What is the most frequent discrepancy you notice when certifying an experimental aircraft? I mean one that is a homebuilt, like maybe a Vans RV. The most frequent show stopper if not corrected.

What is the most frequent discrepancy you have seen or heard about at Reno? ... something that needs to be corrected before racing.

Sorry it's off-topic.
 

In both cases - weight and balance and proper documentation (current airworthiness certificate, registrations, ops specs and in the case of the jets, current parachute pack cert. I know it's paperwork but it's still part of being in a safe condition to fly (only certificated aircraft are "airworthy").

As far as physical discrepancies? Homebuilts - structural problems as part as poor construction methods. jet warbirds - clogged filters, both hydraulic and fuel. Someone will spends thousands on a great paint job but will forget or blow off changing a $100 filter.
 
I thought experimental homebuilts also got an airworthiness certificate. What do they get in lieu of one? More specifically, what is it called?

Every plane I flew when I was flying frequently was certified (mostly in clubs), and all the experimental homebuilts I have ridden in were and are owned by friends (or friends of friends) and I didn't inspect the paperwork before going for a flight. I DID pay attention to the preflight inspections and declined to go once when he declined to inspect it even when I asked about it. It was a Midget Mustang. He didn't even check the oil! Pretty close to an RV-7 in performance.

Both he and the plane are still flying. I still wouldn't get into it without a preflight since I have never seen him inspect anything. I can only assume he does it when the hangar doors are closed.
 
GregP said:
I thought experimental homebuilts also got an airworthiness certificate. What do they get in lieu of one? More specifically, what is it called?
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They do get an airworthiness certificate but in any type of maintenance or inspection release you use the term "safe for flight," or "safe for operation."
Yikes!
GregP said:
Both he and the plane are still flying. I still wouldn't get into it without a preflight since I have never seen him inspect anything. I can only assume he does it when the hangar doors are closed.
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He better! Eventually that will catch up with him!
 

SNelson,

While I have not flown the P-38 (I did sit in one at the Phoenix Air Races) I did fly the F-15. Yes, we would on occasion pull a throttle but that was done to induce yaw (lateral turns). The Eagle would not do a normal turn tighter on one engine. Also realize we had no restrictions on the flight envelope (or almost none). You could fight in a tail slide if you had to, just don't get inside 500' of another aircraft.

As for speedbrakes we were allowed to use them, however most guys didn't as they could interfere in certain regimes. They are mostly used on formation rejoins or slowing in the pattern or during landing. On landing rollout the Eagle aerobrakes to help slow the aircraft, and if you put the boards down (stowed) and the flaps up, you could hold the nose up to about 60-70 kts (it really looks much slower). I could see a guy in the P-38 using them (with high situational awareness) to cause an attacker to overshoot. However, getting slow in front of a guy who is trying to gun you should be done with altitude below you and when not in his gunsight.

Cheers,
Biff
 
Hey Biff,

Was it Lefty Gardner's White Lightning you sat in? I was there and also was there when Kevin Eldridge bailed out. Never thought at the time I'd know him some 30 years later! Great guy, and a lucky one, too. It wasn't pretty when the oil line broke. I went out some 3-4 days later with a good friend ( Ron Saum, we rode Observed Trials motorcycles together and his son, Andy, was Arizona state champion several times) who worked at the GM proving Grounds and found a few parts.

Lefty's P-38 was always dirty and Pat & Joe Yancey sprayed 409 all over it at that show and it shined a bit better ... looked whiter anyway. That was a long time ago, seems like maybe 1985 to 1987, but I can't really recall the exact year. Old memories get older and I can't understand people who remember the year and day when are where they were in WWII, but there are guys who DO recall it. I have a hard time remembering what I had for lunch on Wednesday of last week! ... but I still recall electrical engineering school almost class by class. Maybe I have reason to think of it more. Still, I can remember Kevin's Super Corsair plight VERY clearly, just not the exact year and day. He went out over the left side and should have gone out over the right side. Maybe he would not have hit the horizontal tail ...

As you well know, that's now the Red Bull P-38 and it is all shiny Aluminum. It is a P-38-L-5 (44-53254) with early cowlings, so it looks like an early model, but isn't. But ... you know that already. Lefty flew a good show that day, didn't he?
 
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Flaps for manoeuvre and flaps for landing are really two different things though some did use landing flaps to manoeuvre. Many landing flaps could not be lowered incrementally and certainly not at high speed. This was one of the argument put forward for 'blow back' flaps which would, as the name suggests, be blown back into the wing rather than being blown off the aircraft altogether.
Whilst not specifically related to the P-38, some doubt was cast on the use of flaps to manoeuvre in combat at the Patuxent River Fighter Conference. Whilst some claimed it was at least theoretically useful to deploy flaps in combat, and the flaps on certain aircraft were hel[ful in non combat trials, other doubted that a pilot in combat would have the time or foresight to use them. This view was best summed up by the remarks of a Lieutenant Colonel Renner.

"I asked the question only because I wanted to know of any combat pilot who when bullets are bouncing off the armor plate, or you see those tracers coming over your shoulder and you twisted hell out of that thing and maybe got ready to go straight down, which is one saving grace against the Nip - whether he was thoughtful enough or had enough confidence in those flaps that he would reach over and pull the flap down when he was in a turn and he might want to go down the next instant. I had enough to do to keep track of the Nip and try to get the proper lead and all the other problems in my mind without groping around for that flap handle."

The limitations of flaps for manoeuvre were explained by a Commander Palmer, referring to the F6F and F4U).

"I think the basic reason that Andrews mentioned the use of maneuver flaps is that against the present Jap plane you can turn with him for a short while only by use of these maneuver flaps. It is a known fact that you can't turn with those jobs indefinitely. It gives you a momentary advantage during an attack."

How much were flaps used to manoeuvre, to gain that momentary advantage? I'd bet not much.

Cheers

Steve
 

Sorry to digress....

pbehn a fellow X7 rider, well I never.
I loved those little beasties, I had 4 of them

(one was a Bee-line tuned one that wrecked it's engine inside 1000mls but boy was it fast (well, I know it's all relative, this was the mid - late 80s) & a lot of fun)
 
GregP said:
Maybe I hit "critical Mach! (Recall the 750 Triple was called a "Mach III").
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Sorry to put the pedant's hat on here Greg....

The H1 500cc bike was the Mach III, the H2 750 was the Mach IV (and the 350 was the Mach II & the S1 250 was the Mach I, apparently, although outside of the net I'd never seen that used for the smaller bikes before even if it does kind of make sense).

GregP said:
Did you ever race a Suzuki 500 Titan Twin?
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I had a GT500 which was a later disc braked version of the T. Quite detuned too by all accounts as the T could reach 105 - 110mph & the GT was lucky to break the ton.
Didn't race it but unless it was seriously altered for racing I shudder at the thought, it was so long!
 
Biff, after a training "fight" how much did pilots recollections differ from each other and from verified radar/camera flight recorder information?
 
He He He didnt the tuner tell you that tuning shortens engine life? I used to change pistons, rings and little end bearings after about 200miles, with the cut down skirt and larger ports the pistons have a much harder life, one piston was cracked and just about ready to "go" on strip down.
 
GregP said:
*SNIP*

He didn't even check the oil! Pretty close to an RV-7 in performance.

*SNIP*
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Built a nice rod for a customer once in about 1990, he came in one day in his two/three year old Eldorado making funny engine noises. We're a resto shop but I had him pop the hood, yeah, funny noises like rod knock. Pulled the dipstick, on the end was a burned glob of black something or other. I asked him when was the last time he put oil in it. His response?

"Put oil in? Didn't it come from the factory with oil?"

There are days I have no hope for the human race.
 
Gentlemen,

To the original subject:

From what I remember, the 5th AF recommended "Dive and Zoom" tactics against the Japanese aircraft. They did not recommend using the maneuver flaps and/or dive flaps to try and turn with the Japanese fighters. I believe that tests against the Zeke 52 confirmed the wisdom of the advice.

The 8th Air Force P-38 drivers tried to lure the German fighters into horizontal combat where the Lightning would have the edge. 8th Air Force documents indicated that the P-38 was superior to both the Me-109 and FW-190 below 18,000 feet.

In the 15th Air Force, the commander of the 14th Fighter Group (O.B. Taylor) felt the P-38 could out maneuver any aircraft, friend or foe, below 30,000 feet.

Maneuver Flaps: As stated in an earlier post, these became available in late block F models. They increased the P-38's ability to turn and maneuver by increasing the wing's CL and actually increasing the wing area (Dean in America's 100000). The use of the flaps were restricted to 250 IAS or less.

I believe that most fighter pilots, if given a choice would vastly prefer the Dive and Zoom attack over any other form.

Of course, whoever sees his opponent first has a great edge, and the P-38's shape usually gave that advantage to its opponent.

If you engage in air to air combat on even terms, you have messed up somewhere.

Eagledad
 
pbehn said:
Biff, after a training "fight" how much did pilots recollections differ from each other and from verified radar/camera flight recorder information?
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Pbehn,

During upgrade sorties I usually took notes of some sort during lulls or between fights. No grade sheet attached usually not as both guys had two tapes per plane running and the data to reconstruct a fight was there with some sleuthing required. Odds were you would have most of what you needed.

During initial training I could not reconstruct a fight from memory only, however with time and practice you get good at it. Some guys are better than most, no surprise there. Also realize that when debriefing a Basic Fighter Maneuver (BFM) ride, AKA dogfighting, the lines are drawn VERY accurately so the true learning points can be pulled out. Do it long enough and you know almost instantly during a fight when a learning point occurs. Those points are also known as errors. I usually made a comment, chuckle or oh s--t when those occurred depending on whether I was winning, losing or breaking even...

When reading about engagements I take them with a grain of salt, filtered through my experiences and do not give them an easy 100% accurate cred rating. I look for detail in the story along with acknowledgement of own ship errors, along with time between the event and when pen was put to paper. The standout guys when viewed thru those filters are Bud Anderson and Gunther Rall. Remember this is all opine based filtering!

There is nothing like winning at something very competitive, and ego and time tend to distort those.

Cheers,
Biff
 

Greg,

That Corsair went down at the 94 Phoenix Air Races. Jimmy Buffet was the concert dujour (SP?). I remember it as it was my first year on the F-15 West Coast Demo Team. It was very cool to go to the pilot meeting every morning and see all those guys, Lefty, Hoover, etc., that I had followed via Air Classics.

I did not sit in Lefty's plane, although I'm pretty sure it was there. I don't remember the plane other than it was silver, and pretty sure it was a J or L model. The visibility out of it was atrocious. Those motors are huge and take up a lot of visual space, plus the girders that frame the cockpit were quite distracting. However, remember my point of reference is an Eagle.

Cheers,
Biff
 
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