eBay: Lockheed P-38 Lightning

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Well maybe it's just me but I don't believe I've ever seen photos of a P-38 "droop snoot" with mu-cheen guns in the schnoz and pretty weird/suspect looking ones to-boot. Yeah, in the end it honestly makes no huge impact in my life but hey, we're on the interwebs so....
 

OH .. sorry didn't notice that. Just swapped the two last digits of the serial. Certainly that's the 42-12975 but not the 42-12957. Your 42-12375 doesn't seem to fit because the appearance of the digit "3" you can see above used for the US Army code. The "5" can be excluded too because the highest density of the black pixels is at the top of the digit. The "5" wouldn't have that one rather. The last digit could be the "6" as well. But again, the layout of the black pixels indicates the "5" IMHO.
Additionally, if you use the source link for the second pic of the kite I found you will find that the guys there came to the same. What is more I'm not sure if the two your serials are listed for the P-38 as memo serves. But I may be wrong. Below there is the very enlarged shot I used for working out of the serial.



But I completely agree with you on the barrels. These look strange and the colour of the protruding parts make me not sure what it is. Actually I can' see the muzzles.
 
Excellent work Wurger! Number 42-12975 is what I found in Joe Baugher's site. I just wanted to see what the data panel actually said. This is a P-38/F-5 modification I had never read about, so it is new to me. Thanks for the work on this. I believe also, as others have, the machine guns have covers on them, either canvas or leather. This plane probably did not use the guns often, so to prevent rust, they were covered. I can't see why a recon bird would need someone up front. He would have had an uncomfortable time when the guns were fired. Again, thanks for the detective work. We now have proof for a model.
 
Thank you for the kind words.

as far as the MG barrels are concerned ... I thought the same. Just a kind of protecting sheath because I can't see the muzzles. According to a couple of the web sources that's the same Lightning. It looks like the barrels did have the covers attached.


the source: the net.
 
Excellent stuff! Regarding those barrel/muzzle covers, what makes them suspect to me is when I've seen "covers" over MG barrels on (for example) B-24J nose turret guns, they were definitely a cloth-like material that bent over at the end(s) if that makes sense. These look like hard tubes of some sort and I've never seen pics of anything like that before.
 
THX. I must admit I have seen a such protection used for aircraft of a regiment I served in. But it was during a winter time rather than in the summer. Anyway that's a very interesting detail. And really it may come in handy for the modellers who would like to replicate the XF-5D kite.
 
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The earliest P-38's had only 50 gal drop tanks, mounted close to the wing, as done on other fighters. They found that mounting them on longer pylons reduced drag, and of course the 165 gal and 310 gal tanks came along as well.
 
Thank you to many of you who have contributed to this thread. My modeling research has yielded much information in the XP-38, which is my goal.

If anyone has any detailed pictures, especially of the cockpit to the prototype, it would be greatly appreciated.
 
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