P38 airplane-why isn't this configuration used anymore?

I can think of two other planes with a similar layout, The Black Widow night fighter of the late WWll era(don't remember the P- number) which was a larger plane than the P-38, had a crew of two or three, and the C-119 Flying Boxcar which was a medium size transport plane (pre Viet Nam era). I'm sure there have been others, including some non-American designs. Now that I think of it, Rutans globe girdling plane was a kind of distorted similar design.

Harold Burton South Central Oklahoma

Engine nacelles?

Jim

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Another thought, a twin engined aircraft is a lot harder to control when the engines are spaced so far apart if an engine fails. Things work a lot better if the motors are closer to centerline in those cases.

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Eric R Snow wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

A Vietnam-era bird that was quite similar was the OV-10 "Bronco".

While it's an excellent design for a propellor craft, it's not a good pure jet design due to the issues of engine exhaust.

FWIW, those were called "booms".

BTW, Harold, that was the Northrup P-61 "Black Widow" - it had a 3-man crew and could out-maneuver any other AAF airplane, including the P-38 and the P-51.

Thanks, I just could not remember the P-61 designation. By the way, do you remember the F-82B twin Mustang, now there was an oddity and the 273 of those they made were more than I had originally thought. On looking it up I discovered that the first three North Korean planes shot down were victims of the Twin Mustang. Never knew that.

What about the Voyager plane which went around the world a bunch of years ago?

Tim

"Harold Burton" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:

When Kelly Johnson was drafting the original designs that lead to the P-38, one of the potential designs looked like the Twin Mustang with only 1 cockpit.

I'm glad to hear that the Twin Mustang was actually produced: I'd always been under the impression that it was a prototype that got shunted aside.

Thanks a lot for the info!

Wasn't the air truck used in the escape finale of one of the "Mad Max" series of post apocalypse movies?

And Cessna manufactured a twin engine, twin boom plane.

The good ole 337 Skymaster - better known as the "Huff & Puff" or "Suck & Blow".

That was the Rutan aircraft.

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I think the germans hated them. Called them 'fork tailed devils.' I do know that the design flirted with compressibility problems and had to be tweaked a bit after it killed a couple of test pilots.

As one of the very first designs to be properly tested in a wind tunnel (langley I think) it was found that the wing root connection - which was abrupt and sharp - was shedding vortices that went back and made the elevator ineffective.

The wing root was then faired in with a small piece of sheet metal and that solved the problem. You can see it added on in some photos.

Charles Lindbergh shot down at least one Jap plane while flying P38s in the south pacific. He was never credited with the kill as he was officially a civilian contractor at the time.

Jim

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The most recent time I know of anyone using that configuration was the Rutan designed Pond racer.

Those slim engine pods held motors based on a Nissan V6 though using few if any OEM Nissan parts. They were bored, blown, and injected until they hit HP numbers well into four figures, (and had a TBO measured in minutes). The cowling was so tight, and it ran so hot, as soon as the engines were shut down after a flight ground powered blowers had to be hooked up to the cooling vents to keep it from doing a melt down on the taxiway.

Later, Joe

There seems to be a lot of them forsale :^).

John

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A squadron of P-38s shot down a plane carrying Admiral Yamamoto, the mastermind behind the Pearl Harbor raid.

Intelligence knew he was on the plane, and the sortie was intended to get him.

Leo (pearland, tx)

Yep, that's the one.

No? If you consider WWII "a bunch of years ago", yes, but literally it's correct.

Hmm.. now that I think of it, wasn't Voyager the solar-powered one? Then what was the carbon-composite one...

Tim

-- In the immortal words of Ned Flanders: "No foot longs!" Website @

The wing root was such a critical area that leaving the side window open on takeoff would cause the wing on that side to stall.

The P-38 was tricky to bail out from; the pilot had to jump between the booms without hitting the horizontal stabilizer between them.

South Pacific WWII ace, Ira Bong was said to be able to turn inside the infamous Japanese Zero by cutting power on the inside engine and letting the drag from the prop pull the plane around tighter than normal.

Fred

It was December 23,1986. Like I said, yesterday. What is "a bunch of", literally?

BTW, it wasn't solar powered.

R, Tom Q.

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson: "Shut up, Flanders" "Get lost, Flanders" "Keep walking, Flanders" "You su-diddly-uck, Flanders"

(Hey, I like a good Simpsons' quote as much as anyone, but I think you're in a rut)

P-38 was a very good airplane. It's reputation suffered from being rushed into service before several mechanical problems were fully sorted out. Also some poor thought was used in control placement for various items, making the pilot's tasks very awkward. Many planes/pilots were lost because of this. Also add the political/corporate BS going on behind the scenes, and the press falling in love with the P-51. Like the B-17, whatever the press goes ga-ga over becomes the "Greatest ______ of the War". Bong proved the capability of the P-38, nobody in US forces had more confimed kills in any other aircraft. They all had a job to do and they all did certain things better or equal to others.

michael