P-38 Lightning Speculation Thread

[Godspeed]

On 3/21/2018 at 8:31 PM, Porkins said:

That's my biggest question as well, how similar will it be to the BF 110?

 

I love the 110 as an aircraft, but I personally don't find it all that fun to fly in IL-2. Whether I'm flying it or facing it, it feels like a death trap. Which may be accurate, as historically it did very poorly against single engine fighters, and particularly in MP that's 80% of what you will be facing if you go with the 110. But even attacking ground targets I have far less confidence in it holding up compared to the IL-2 or PE 2. 

 

 

 

I have got some kills with Bf 110 against fighters in multiplay. ( Wings of Liberty )

Best way to survive is to load low fuel as possible so you can get some extra speed.

 

Take your bombs to target and plan it in advance.

Drop the bombs and get out fast as possible using build in autopilot. ( Combat Speed if you have not noticed any enemy activity yet )

 

If you see enemy fighter and cannot avoid it (By Running) try to get the fighter to your crosshair even it would use your speed/energy.

Shoot all your might even most bullets will miss even the plane is not in optimal firing range.

 

Dont save ammo since if you fail to get it down or damage it badly you will not survive.

Last ditch plan is your tail gunner it sometimes can save you since you can take alot of hits sometimes. (Sometimes not)

 

But mostly try not to get in to fight.

I know what you are talking about and its not easy life but someone has to do it.

 

Some lucky encounters are unescorted Pe-2 or Il-2 plane then you can get some revenge.

 

 

Edit: Pilot can dog fight on later G2 model but its not usually available. Basically you could just hunt planes on G2 but i think its not really helping anyone since focus on mission is the 110 pilots main job. Even G2 model when you are doing ground targets the circumstances are not in your favor if enemy fighter attacks you from higher altitude.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Godspeed

[Bremspropeller]

The P-38 will be a lot better than the 110.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Indeed.  They were designed for entirely different roles, though neither or them ended up getting used as originally planned.

[Stoopy]

Not to stir the pot or anything ? but I just wanna say how proud I am of our collective expectant P-38 community for not expressing a bunch of disappointment and stuff about how it's not been released yet.  Particularly considering what an awe-inspiring machine it has the potential to be, and how we know it will absolutely tower over all others and woop butt while them single-engine folks are nancing and prancing around in their little ponies.  You are all absolute models of patience, wisdom and restraint.

 

I look forward to tearing up the skies with my soon-to-be fellow steely-nerved deadly masters of the air.

 

S!

 

?

Edited July 25, 2019 by Stoopy

[357th_Dog]

14 minutes ago, Stoopy said:

Not to stir the pot or anything ? but I just wanna say how proud I am of our collective expectant P-38 community for not expressing a bunch of disappointment and stuff about how it's not been released yet.  Particularly considering what an awe-inspiring machine it has the potential to be, and how we know it will absolutely tower over all others and woop butt while them single-engine folks are nancing and prancing around in their little ponies.  You are all absolute models of patience, wisdom and restraint.

 

I look forward to tearing up the skies with my soon-to-be fellow steely-nerved deadly masters of the air.

 

S!

 

?

Give it time 

[seafireliv]

I flew the P38 a few times when in a good squad in IL2. It was quite a nice aircraft. I was always struck by the huge engines either side of me and it all felt somewhat `safe`. always best with a wingman friend... I sometimes miss those days.

 

It will be interesting to see if it `feels` as cosy in VR.

[Jaegermeister]

I’m not so sure us wannabe Lightning pilots are all that and more, but this is early release after all. I expect things to be released when the devs are done with them, not according to what I like most. ?

 

With that said, other than the map, the P38 is what I am most looking forward to.

[69th_chuter]

On 3/21/2018 at 4:12 PM, =362nd_FS=RoflSeal said:

 

... P-38 will be the first fighter with counter rotating engines, eliminating pulling effects caused by the propellor spinning, hence it should be a very stable gun platform ...

 

Yes, but with the boosted ailerons comes an increase of upward and downward aileron travel with the downward now equaling the upward (no longer drag neutral differential travel) so hard rolling will induce adverse yaw requiring rudder to keep the plane coordinated.  Not a deal maker for any combat pilot but it will be interesting to see how it's modeled.

 

 

On 3/22/2018 at 7:56 AM, PatrickAWlson said:

McGuire was known to use flaps to turn with Zeros,  but that was not recommended tactics.  He had to be a hell of a pilot to pull that off as often as he did.  In the end, however, those tactics killed him.

 

Yeah, it was early on a mission and he didn't want to give up all the remaining fuel in the drop tanks.

 

I remember reading the account of a rookie pilot told to fly McGuire's wing (in a high mileage plane - because: Rookie) and he was told NOT to look around and NOT to pay attention to enemy planes ... just hang on to McGuire.  He said when they encountered enemy aircraft it was all he could do to follow Mac.  When they got back to base he noticed some popped rivets* on top of the inboard wing and the crew chief mentioning something about the aircraft being due for retirement anyway.

 

*We have popped rivet issues on the INBD wing leading edge upper surface on the 737all, but that's an engineering not an extreme use issue.  You would think a plane that's been in production and operating for more than 50 years would be just a bit better sorted (there's quite a number of silly problems - deflection rib, anyone - lol)... and don't get me going on the manuals and illustrations!

[Jaegermeister]

16 minutes ago, chuter said:

 

Yes, but with the boosted ailerons comes an increase of upward and downward aileron travel with the downward now equaling the upward (no longer drag neutral differential travel) so hard rolling will induce adverse yaw requiring rudder to keep the plane coordinated.  Not a deal maker for any combat pilot but it will be interesting to see how it's modeled.

 

It will also be interesting to see how the single engine torque is modeled. My understanding is that it could easily kill you if you lost an engine on take off, but that it can also be used to great advantage.

 

I have read about a maneuver used against Zeros in the PTO where the P38 pulled up in a climbing turn, chopped power to the inside motor and kicked rudder to execute an immediate reversal. Then power was restored to both motors to straighten out. I’ve been wanting to try that for years, but never had the plane or the dual controls to pull it off. We shall see.

[Diggun]

Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, but where were the p38s based during the bobp time frame? And what were they doing? 

 

I'm super hyped by the pics in the latest dd. She looks awesome! Though there sure are plenty of frames in that canopy... 

Edited July 27, 2019 by Diggun

[69th_chuter]

5 hours ago, Diggun said:

Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, but where were the p38s based during the bobp time frame? And what were they doing? 

 

I'm super hyped by the pics in the latest dd. She looks awesome! Though there sure are plenty of frames in that canopy... 

 

There were no 8th AF P-38 groups at the end of 1944 and the 9th AF had the 367th FG, 370th FG and 474th FG.  The 370th FG went to Mustangs in January 1945 and the 367th FG to P-47s in February 1945.  The 9th AF was tasked with tactical interdiction and the three P-38 groups were all equipped with some Snoot noses for formation bombing missions which the Mustangs and Thunderbolts weren't equipped for.

[ZachariasX]

On 7/26/2019 at 6:51 AM, Jaegermeister said:

My understanding is that it could easily kill you if you lost an engine on take off, but that it can also be used to great advantage.

The Lightning is a good aircraft and it can be flown on one engine. Losing an engine on takeoff is a problem because this is a combat aircraft loaded to the gills with fuel and ammo. The manual states that you abort takeoff right away if you haven‘t reached 120 mph before losing an engine. At this point you wouldn‘t be far from the ground yet, if at all. It is a good idea aborting takeoff then. There is nothing special about engine torque on the Lightning besides having no torque effects when flown on both engines. There is no upside to limping around on one engine in hostile territory. 

 

 

[Jaegermeister]

11 hours ago, Diggun said:

Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, but where were the p38s based during the bobp time frame? And what were they doing? 

 

The 370th Fighter group was based at A-78, Florennes, Belgium from September 44 through mid January 45. The airbase is indicated as being on the BoBP map that was first put up in Jason’s thread asking for some airbase information. The airfield wasn’t actually attacked during Operation Bodenplatte. 

 

The 370th transitioned to P-51s in February and March of 45, so they were flying P-38s through most of the timeframe that will be represented in the career. They were flying ground attack missions all the way through the invasion of France, Belgium and Germany and were involved in every major US offensive.

 

I am fairly sure we will will see them represented in the career module, and I am hoping to do a historical scripted campaign depicting the 370th FG if we get the right base and some decent objects to populate it.

 

5 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

The Lightning is a good aircraft and it can be flown on one engine. Losing an engine on takeoff is a problem because this is a combat aircraft loaded to the gills with fuel and ammo. The manual states that you abort takeoff right away if you haven‘t reached 120 mph before losing an engine. At this point you wouldn‘t be far from the ground yet, if at all. It is a good idea aborting takeoff then. There is nothing special about engine torque on the Lightning besides having no torque effects when flown on both engines. There is no upside to limping around on one engine in hostile territory. 

 

 

Exactly. Losing half your thrust in the middle of takeoff is not good. I believe it was manageable if you reduced throttle on the good engine to avoid turning into the bad one at low speed. I am not familiar with the exact procedure but perhaps you are? I would be interested to know. I recall reading that Tony Levier did it all the time in demo flights.

 

 

Edited July 27, 2019 by Jaegermeister

[Bremspropeller]

On 7/26/2019 at 6:51 AM, Jaegermeister said:

My understanding is that it could easily kill you if you lost an engine on take off, but that it can also be used to great advantage.

 

That holds true for any piston twin.

It's not so much the torque, it's the loss of roughly 80% of all of your available performance, if an engine fails on take-off.

Depending on conditions and the loadout, a twin on one engine might not even be able to sustain (!) altitude.

[BlitzPig_EL]

An old flying truism...  When an engine fails on a twin engine aircraft, you have enough power for controlled flight to the scene of the crash.

[ZachariasX]

3 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

Exactly. Losing half your thrust in the middle of takeoff is not good. I believe it was manageable if you reduced throttle on the good engine to avoid turning into the bad one at low speed. I am not familiar with the exact procedure but perhaps you are? I would be interested to know. I recall reading that Tony Levier did it all the time in demo flights.

You cut throttle on the good engine to land straight ahead immediately. The slower you go, the less effective your controls. 120 mph seems to be the minimum airspeed required for the controls to be effective enough to counter the adverse torque from the remaining engine.

 

The more power you have, the easier it is to remain fast enough for retaining full control and it is giving you more margin on one engine. That made for instance the Bf-110 a good and safe aircraft and the Do-217 was a nasty piece of crap. The more engines you have, the more likely one is to fail. If you have more than one, chances are more than double that at least one engine fails. If on a twin engine one failed engine spells as much doom as engine failure on one engine, you ended up with a bad design. The de Havilland Hornet is an example of a drastically overpowered twin that could be flown on one engine in the same way as on two engines. A very popular aircraft.

[AKA_Hollywood]

 

Zeno's vid on the P-38

 

@ about 7:30 minutes.. discussion on T/O and 120 mph (single engine flight)

 

Also, at 20:50 other discussion on single engine flight...

 

 

Edited July 27, 2019 by AH_Hollywood

[Legioneod]

Isn't the loss of an engine what killed Ethell?

[Bremspropeller]

Yeah, he ran dry a tank and had one engine quit due to fuel starvation.

He then didn't observe his airspeed, dropped below Vmca and had the airplane depart under him.

 

https://www.avweb.com/flight-safety/close-up-the-jeff-ethell-p-38-crash/

 

That's what a Vmc crash looks like on take off:

 

The pilot didn't make it.

 

Edited July 27, 2019 by Bremspropeller

[Legioneod]

42 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

The pilot didn't make it.

Death is a very serious matter but this comment gave me a chuckle.

[namhee2]

Tamiya´s news:

https://www.tamiya.com/english/info/aircraft_preview/index.htm

 

P38 F/G

[pa4tim]

 

[unreasonable]

On 7/27/2019 at 10:10 PM, ZachariasX said:

The more engines you have, the more likely one is to fail. If you have more than one, chances are more than double that at least one engine fails.

 

Caveat to my upvote:  Slightly less than double, if the chance of failure in each engine is independent. Suppose probability of failure is 10%, p of not failure is 90%, for each engine. 

 

For a twin to have no engine fail, the probability = 0.90*0.90 = 0.81   ie a 0.19 probability that at least one fails, compared to the base case of 0.10

 

Similarly for a Lancaster the probability of having no engine fail would be 0.90^4 = 0.66 ie 0.34 that at least one fails. 

 

(Removes nerd hat and slinks off....)

Edited August 2, 2019 by unreasonable

[ZachariasX]

1 hour ago, unreasonable said:

Caveat to my upvote:  Slightly less than double, if the chance of failure in each engine is independent. 

True. but if you have a mechanic that lets you fly with one questionable engine, hiw would the other engine look like?

 

[unreasonable]

33 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

True. but if you have a mechanic that lets you fly with one questionable engine, hiw would the other engine look like?

 

 

Also true - at least some of the time. I expect if you were the new boy who got given the ropey old plane and the least experienced ground crew your engines' chances of failure would not be independent and higher than average too. Doubly unfair as you would also be the pilot least likely to cope correctly with an emergency. 

[CIA_Yankee_]

So, I'm going to throw this out there:

 

What advantages can we expect to see from the P-38 over, say, flying the P-51?

 

The obvious would be better more central armament, and better effectiveness as an attack plane, but what about in pure air superiority? It's really hard to find any conclusive data.

[Gambit21]

“Better armament” is subjective and debatable. 

[ZachariasX]

~2 tons of dakkadakka in the P-38 vs. ~1 ton of dakkadakka in the P-51.

[357th_Dog]

4 minutes ago, 71st_AH_Yankee_ said:

So, I'm going to throw this out there:

 

What advantages can we expect to see from the P-38 over, say, flying the P-51?

 

The obvious would be better more central armament, and better effectiveness as an attack plane, but what about in pure air superiority? It's really hard to find any conclusive data.

On the armament point..

IRL the P-38 suffered from jamming issues with the hispano 20mm, however since random jamming isn't really modeled currently, it'll be okay.   

[sevenless]

Wasn´t production cost of the P-38 nearly double that of the Mustang? I remember that I read somewhere about 50.000 USD for P-51 and 115.000 USD for P38. Dunno how creditable that figures are though.

[357th_Dog]

14 minutes ago, sevenless said:

Wasn´t production cost of the P-38 nearly double that of the Mustang? I remember that I read somewhere about 50.000 USD for P-51 and 115.000 USD for P38. Dunno how creditable that figures are though.

P-38: US $97,147 in 1944
P-51: US $50,985 in 1945
P-47: US $83,000 in 1945


 

[ZachariasX]

2 minutes ago, sevenless said:

Wasn´t production cost of the P-38 nearly double that of the Mustang? I remember that I read somewhere about 50.000 USD for P-51 and 115.000 USD for P38. Dunno how creditable that figures are though.

Wikipedia has these numbers. While they may reflect the price per item, one has to keep in mind that they reflect agreed price for a government contract, not the actual production cost. Hence the P-51 costs about exactly as much as the P-40, as it had his genesis in the mandate for license producing that latter type. Not wanting to hand most of the profits (everything within these ~50k $, 1944 USD), NA lobbied for an own design. So you see, $50k is not at all the production cost, but the result of a contract negotiation. Same for the ~$100k for the Lightning.

 

The Thunderbolt supposedly went on sale for ~$83k, indicating good negotiation. The Hellcat supposedly for ~$35k. Either a turbocharger costs $45k or so or the NAVY is much better at sourcing...

[JtD]

The equipment status of Army and Navy fighters might have been different. If you get an F6F for 35k, it might well be missing the engine. Army prices are for flyaway aircraft including radio and factory installed ordinance.

 

The F4U was about as cheap as an F6F and I do believe they were much easier to produce than a P-47. The P-47 had several things that made it costly from a production point of view. Size, turbo as you say, but also an elliptical wing. Adds up.

[PatrickAWlson]

1 hour ago, 71st_AH_Yankee_ said:

So, I'm going to throw this out there:

 

What advantages can we expect to see from the P-38 over, say, flying the P-51?

 

The obvious would be better more central armament, and better effectiveness as an attack plane, but what about in pure air superiority? It's really hard to find any conclusive data.

 

P38

- Low speed turn radius.

- Survivability due to two engines.

- Less vulnerable to ground fire

- Bigger payload

- Center mounted guns

 

P51

- Faster

- Might dive better

- Zoom

- Better view.
 

Not sure

- Roll? Later P38s had aileron boost that improved roll, so not sure

- Sustained climb?

- Acceleration?

- High speed handling?

 

[DSR_A-24]

1 minute ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

P38

- Low speed turn radius.

- Survivability due to two engines.

- Less vulnerable to ground fire

- Bigger payload

- Center mounted guns

 

P51

- Faster

- Might dive better

- Zoom

- Better view.
 

Not sure

- Roll? Later P38s had aileron boost that improved roll, so not sure

- Sustained climb?

- Acceleration?

- High speed handling?

 

P-38 should climb, accelerate and roll faster than the P-51. Its going to have the best aileron authority in the game, but what will make or break this plane is its elevator authority. P-47 holds its own very well on the arena server and in theory the P-38 should do even better.

[ZachariasX]

13 minutes ago, JtD said:

If you get an F6F for 35k, it might well be missing the engine.

If I caught someone in sourcing getting his numbers pretty by buying aircraft without engine, I‘d send that guy to Burma. He could help building a bridge before blowing it up himself.

 

Assuming the prices stated by Wiki are correct, it just shows how little item costs actually mattered compared to how many could be built for your purposes. If there was a total amount of money that you‘d use for financing your war, you‘d have to be daft buying a single P-47 over two Hellcats or Corsairs.

[unreasonable]

The contracts would have been cost plus %, or cost plus fixed fee and these costs would not only have included the unit cost of "stuff" in the plane and the labour to put it together, but also allowances for the capital expenditure required to meet these contracts in the time required.  These kinds of contracts are usually designed to give a certain level of return on capital, rather than a particular percentage margin.

 

So the difference between $83k for a P-47 and $35k for a Hellcat (which I agree looks enormous) may at least partly reflect that Republic Aviation had to quadruple the size of their factory and build new airstrips (according to Wiki), eventually relocating altogether,  while perhaps Grumman did not.  In addition, I believe that Grumman was non-unionized which could have reduced it's unit costs considerably. While both companies got their engines as a component, the P-47 turbocharger element would have had to be designed and made in house.  (I think).

 

Of course there is room for some clever negotiation: but I think it is fair to assume that the total unit costs were proportional to the quoted prices, although it is not easy to check this. 

    

[CIA_Yankee_]

2 hours ago, DSR_T-888 said:

P-38 should climb, accelerate and roll faster than the P-51. Its going to have the best aileron authority in the game, but what will make or break this plane is its elevator authority. P-47 holds its own very well on the arena server and in theory the P-38 should do even better.

 

... the P-47 does? Are you sure? Or do you mean due to its magical flaps? If anything, what I've experienced is the P-47 suffers from poor elevator authority at high speed, which seems inconsistent with reports. And in a turn the P-47 does very poorly until you drop its flaps, but at that point you are so slow that any halfway decent pilots will stop turning and just use the opportunity to gain an overwhelming energy advantage.

 

 

[JtD]

2 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

If I caught someone in sourcing getting his numbers pretty by buying aircraft without engine, I‘d send that guy to Burma. He could help building a bridge before blowing it up himself.

 

https://books.google.de/books?id=tefioVoOxXgC&pg=PT115&lpg=PT115

 

I find these prices more reasonable.

 

But, as it was, the engine wasn't always included in a unit price, fact. If that applies to the 35k figure for a Hellcat - don't know. The USN definitely had the habit of buying aircraft with engines.

[danielprates]

4 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 Survivability due to two engines.

 

I never read anything on the topic of one-engine handling of the p38. Was it manageable? Some or most planes are a nightmare to keep under control with only one engine running.