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

I had heard or read somewhere that an outfit in Britain was going to produce Spitfires, brand new, again. For rich guys only, of course. Is this still in the works, or was it something other than a Spit? They were going to use the marine version of the Merlin, with a few changes (dual ignition and gear reduction?) which is apparently still in production. There was another company that was offering an FW190 kit, with some Polish radial engine nearly identical to the original, for something like US$400K. What became of that? A production Mossie would be a seller, I'm sure, but the labour costs would be horrendous, not to mention the difficulty in getting decent wood anymore.

Dan

Mr. Martindale explains it better than I.

The Cessna 411 had a problem with single-engine operation. The rudder and horizontal stabilizer weren't large enough to counter assymetric thrust. The rest of the 400 series had a much larger tail and were benign during single-engine operation.

The Tiger is a sweet plane.

It would be inefficient. And if you set the props at different RPMs, they drone out of synch, which I find to be quite irritating.

D.

nope. you climb an aircraft by increasing power, thereby increasing lift. pitch up results in a climb only at the expense of airspeed, at a constant power setting. one thing drilled into me during flight training was "power=altitude; attitude=airspeed". if you want to go up 1000ft, goose the power.

This can be argued endlessly among pilots, but it's really an argument about control. If you want to climb, should you increase power or pitch? Your instructor will tell you one or the other, but they really mean that it's more effective to control X with Y, not that Y is the only way to get X, nor that Y affects only X.

The real truth is that you can climb by increasing power while keeping airspeed constant (or keeping pitch attitude constant, which isn't the same), or you can climb by pitching the nose up a modest amount while keeping power constant. Either one works. But for the most effective climb, you increase power *and* pitch the nose up *and* decrease the airspeed to the best rate of climb speed.

However, we're talking about P-factor in this thread. This is caused by the propeller disc not being perpendicular to the airflow, i.e. the nose being pitched up. Adding power without pitch will indeed cause a climb, but it won't create P-factor, so it's not so interesting for this thread.

Dave (private pilot single engine land)

Just a word of caution here- although the Tiger does wonderful rolls, it wasn't meant for aerobatics. It won't recover from a spin.

D.

Really . I was lead to believe it could be thrown backwards or about any situation and get out of it . No spins! That's scary , I can't handle that. I'm sure they make better planes now , plus I'd have to have a tail dragger to land on the beach.

BTW, I loved that show about getting a P-38 out of the ice. That puppy was crushed junk and they still got investors to pay to get it out ! Wish I could find investors like that. Maybe the footage payed for it , but I don't know. Should have just left it there.

Thanks

Finding investors like that is easy. Convincing them that they will make money on their investment is the hard part.

Naw, It's better to share it with future generations so that they will have an appreciation of their heritage.

D.

In my stash, I've got a book or two on the P-38. The Anmerican version used handed engines--IIRC, the tops of the propellers went inward to the fuse. The Brits ordered a version that 1) used the same handed engine and 2) deleted the turbocharger. They hated it so much those planes got used by the USAAF for training.

FWIW, the XP38 crashed on its first cross country flight (literally, Burbank to NYC). The plane was coming in to the final location (Long Island?) and both engines' carbs iced up. No serious problems, though the prototype was written off.

One of the reasons why the 8th airforce didn't like the P-38 for escort duties in Europe was the fact that the cockpit heating sucked. With the range of the plane, it was rough on the pilot. He generally had to be helped/pulled out of the cockpit after a mission. OTOH, in the Pacific, heating wasn't as big an issue.

BTW, anybody remember how many kills Charles Lindberg had in the P-38? I gather they were unofficial, since he was a civilian....

Pete Brooks

Hell, the Zero could outmaneuver any US aircraft, but that didn't stop P-38s and Corsairs from shooting them out of the sky. You fight to your strength, not your opponent's. (Hint, both the P-38 and Corsair used an 'swoop and fire' approach. Works wonders if you have more airspeed and altitude to play with...)

Pete Brooks

He was *indirectly* responsible for many, many kills, including the admiral who was shot down - because he was directly responsible for the procedural changes which increased the operating range of the p38 by about fifty percent.

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Pounce and trounce. Altitude and speed are life. Hanging around in the fur ball to maneuver gets you killed. The technique was to slice through the enemy formation. Take your shot, and dive away, preserving your speed. Then climb and do it again if necessary. Most kills never saw the plane that got them.

Gary

pete brooks wrote in news:5L44b.9384$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr25.news.prodigy.com:

The only recorded instance was 1 with the 475th Fighter Group.

FWIW, the cruise control techniques that he taught had already been used by those pilots who'd been flying the P-38 in the Pacific Theater since the beginning of the war.