Watching the history cahnnel about the P38. A plane which has
interested me since I was little. The design which uses a short
central fuselage with two long outboard ones (are those outboard ones
called fuselages?) which support the tail isn't used anymore, is it?
If not,why? Since this plane was, in it's day, considered a great
plane. Idle minds want to know.
ERS

"Eric R Snow" wrote in message
...
Watching the history cahnnel about the P38. A plane which has
interested me since I was little. The design which uses a short
central fuselage with two long outboard ones (are those outboard ones
called fuselages?) which support the tail isn't used anymore, is it?
If not,why? Since this plane was, in it's day, considered a great
plane. Idle minds want to know.
ERS

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

In article , Eric R Snow says...

(are those outboard ones
called fuselages?)

Engine nacelles?

Jim

==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

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.


On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 17:57:41 -0700, Eric R Snow
wrote:

x-Watching the history cahnnel about the P38. A plane which has
x-interested me since I was little. The design which uses a short
x-central fuselage with two long outboard ones (are those outboard ones
x-called fuselages?) which support the tail isn't used anymore, is it?
x-If not,why? Since this plane was, in it's day, considered a great
x-plane. Idle minds want to know.
x-ERS

--
Visit my website:
http://www.frugalmachinist.com
Contents: foundry and general metal working and lots of related projects.
Regards
Roy aka Chipmaker // Foxeye
Opinions are strictly those of my wife....I have had no input whatsoever.
Remove capital A from chipmAkr for correct email address

Eric R Snow wrote in
:

Watching the history cahnnel about the P38. A plane which has
interested me since I was little. The design which uses a short
central fuselage with two long outboard ones (are those outboard ones
called fuselages?) which support the tail isn't used anymore, is it?
If not,why? Since this plane was, in it's day, considered a great
plane. Idle minds want to know.
ERS

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.

"RAM^3" wrote in message
4...
Eric R Snow wrote in
:


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

--
In the immortal words of Ned Flanders: "No foot longs!"
Website @ http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms

"Eric R Snow" wrote in message
...
Watching the history cahnnel about the P38. A plane which has
interested me since I was little. The design which uses a short
central fuselage with two long outboard ones (are those outboard ones
called fuselages?) which support the tail isn't used anymore, is it?
If not,why? Since this plane was, in it's day, considered a great
plane. Idle minds want to know.
ERS

"Harold Burton" wrote in
:


"RAM^3" wrote in message
4...
Eric R Snow wrote in
:


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.




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!

"Glenn Cramond" wrote in message
om...
Eastburn wrote in message
.
following up a thread on the P38 Lockheed.

There was an Aussi aerial agriculture design made by a company
Transavia (subsiduary of Transfield I think) called the "Airtruck"
great little crop duster as you could back the filler right up to the
rear hoper. Piper and Cessna were just too big to compete with
particularly with their Turbine models.

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 engine were mounted at the front and rear of the cabin/cockpit.

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

That was the Rutan aircraft.


On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 22:24:46 -0500, "Tim Williams"
wrote:

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

--
Visit my website:
http://www.frugalmachinist.com
Contents: foundry and general metal working and lots of related projects.
Regards
Roy aka Chipmaker // Foxeye
Opinions are strictly those of my wife....I have had no input whatsoever.
Remove capital A from chipmAkr for correct email address

In article , Fred Fowler says...

I think this: by the time the P38 reached role capability, there were
many other designs looked at for fighter/bomber's. It was a latecomer
to the scene and the Jet fighter was soon to be realized.

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

==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

In article ,
says...
Watching the history cahnnel about the P38. A plane which has
interested me since I was little. The design which uses a short
central fuselage with two long outboard ones (are those outboard ones
called fuselages?) which support the tail isn't used anymore, is it?
If not,why? Since this plane was, in it's day, considered a great
plane. Idle minds want to know.
ERS


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

http://www.mojave.ca.us/museum/photos-cftc-airraces.htm

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

On Sat, 23 Aug 2003 13:41:51 GMT, Roy wrote:

Yep, they were a dime a dozen in vietnam. Was supposed to take over
the role of FAO/FAC from the old Bird Dog, but they seemed to fall out
of the sky very easy. We used to call em the Suck and Blow. MOst
pilots back then and maybe even now thought of them as a death trap
for the most part.

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

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...=Google+Search


John

Please note that my return address is wrong due to the amount of junk email I get.
So please respond to this message through the newsgroup.

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)

"Harold Burton" wrote in message ...
"Glenn Cramond" wrote in message
om...
Eastburn wrote in message
.
following up a thread on the P38 Lockheed.

There was an Aussi aerial agriculture design made by a company
Transavia (subsiduary of Transfield I think) called the "Airtruck"
great little crop duster as you could back the filler right up to the
rear hoper. Piper and Cessna were just too big to compete with
particularly with their Turbine models.

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

Yep, that's the one.

"Tom Quackenbush" wrote in message
...
What about the Voyager plane which went around the world a bunch of years
ago?

Ahem? "...A bunch of years ago..."? That was yesterday, boyo!

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 @ http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms

jim rozen wrote:

In article , Fred Fowler says...



I think this: by the time the P38 reached role capability, there were
many other designs looked at for fighter/bomber's. It was a latecomer
to the scene and the Jet fighter was soon to be realized.



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




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

On Sat, 23 Aug 2003 14:39:37 -0500, "Tim Williams"
wrote:
SNIP
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 @ http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms


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

BTW, it wasn't solar powered.

http://www.nasm.si.edu/nasm/aero/aircraft/rutanvoy.htm

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)

Fred Fowler wrote:

On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 17:57:41 -0700, Eric R Snow
scribed:

Watching the history cahnnel about the P38. A plane which has
interested me since I was little. The design which uses a short
central fuselage with two long outboard ones (are those outboard ones
called fuselages?) which support the tail isn't used anymore, is it?
If not,why? Since this plane was, in it's day, considered a great
plane. Idle minds want to know.
ERS

Eric:

Was a great plane. There are still a few floating around the airshows
today.

I think this: by the time the P38 reached role capability, there were
many other designs looked at for fighter/bomber's. It was a latecomer
to the scene and the Jet fighter was soon to be realized.

If your interested in WWII aircraft, go checkout the site
http://www.luft46.com and you will be surprised at the configurations
and applications the Axis were working on during the WWII years...

Best,

Fred

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

(Tom) writes:

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

Don't forget "Pushme - Pullyou".

In theory, it's safer than other twins because when one engine
quits the pilot doesn't have to counteract the yaw produced by the
asymmetric thrust.

Dave

My fuzzy memory recalls the British Vampire Jet fighter.

Steve Rayner.


"Eric R Snow" wrote in message
...
Watching the history cahnnel about the P38. A plane which has
interested me since I was little. The design which uses a short
central fuselage with two long outboard ones (are those outboard ones
called fuselages?) which support the tail isn't used anymore, is it?
If not,why? Since this plane was, in it's day, considered a great
plane. Idle minds want to know.
ERS

"Tom Quackenbush" wrote in message
...
It was December 23,1986. Like I said, yesterday. g
What is "a bunch of", literally?

Not 16... more than a couple, maybe a few couples. (

BTW, it wasn't solar powered.

http://www.nasm.si.edu/nasm/aero/aircraft/rutanvoy.htm

Yeah, I was gonna say..

Tim

--
In the immortal words of Ned Flanders: "No foot longs!"
Website @ http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms

"Dave Martindale" wrote in message
...
In theory, it's safer than other twins because when one engine
quits the pilot doesn't have to counteract the yaw produced by the
asymmetric thrust.

What about P factor? Depending on which one quits and if they spin
the same direction and so on...

Tim

--
In the immortal words of Ned Flanders: "No foot longs!"
Website @ http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms

There have been quite a few twin-boom aircraft over the years. One of
the earliest jet-age examples was the de Havilland Vampire, a single
engine jet fighter. One of the larger twin-booms was the Fairchild
C-119, a twin prop cargo plane. Perhaps the latest production
twin-boom is the Sukhoi S-80, a twin turboprop regional transport that
made its debut a couple of years ago. A google search on "twin boom"
airplane turns up some very odd birds.

Bert

Fred Fowler wrote:

On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 17:57:41 -0700, Eric R Snow
scribed:

Watching the history cahnnel about the P38. A plane which has
interested me since I was little. The design which uses a short
central fuselage with two long outboard ones (are those outboard ones
called fuselages?) which support the tail isn't used anymore, is it?
If not,why? Since this plane was, in it's day, considered a great
plane. Idle minds want to know.
ERS


Eric:

Was a great plane. There are still a few floating around the airshows
today.

I think this: by the time the P38 reached role capability, there were
many other designs looked at for fighter/bomber's. It was a latecomer
to the scene and the Jet fighter was soon to be realized.

If your interested in WWII aircraft, go checkout the site
http://www.luft46.com and you will be surprised at the configurations
and applications the Axis were working on during the WWII years...

Best,

Fred

"Tim Williams" writes:

What about P factor? Depending on which one quits and if they spin
the same direction and so on...

Yes, there's still P-factor in a climb. But that just requires a little
rudder pressure during a climb, and goes away in cruise.

With any twin, you've got to figure out which engine died, stop it, and
feather the prop. A windmilling dead engine can cause so much drag
that the maximum possible rate of climb is negative. On the other
hand, you'd better be damned sure you're shutting down the dead engine,
not the good one, for obvious reasons. Once the dead engine is secured
and the good one is producing maximum power, you still have to fly the
plane at a fairly low airspeed (probably near maximum rate of climb
speed) to get a positive rate of climb. Either faster or slower and
you sink.

With a Skymaster, that should be about all you need to do. It will
basically fly straight. But with a conventional twin, it may turn out
that at this optimum rate of climb speed you don't have enough rudder
authority to fly the plane in a straight line, since the thrust is so
asymmetric. Since flying in circles is often not very useful
(particularly if there are buildings or mountains nearby), you may have
to hold a gentle bank as well as full rudder to fly in a straight
line. The Skymaster avoids this.

Dave

The one that flew out to Kwaj wasn't that little ! - 2500 N miles is a
little
long for the rage for that baby!

Martin
--
Martin Eastburn, Barbara Eastburn
@ home at Lion's Lair with our computer
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

Dave Martindale wrote in message The Skymaster avoids this.

What the Skymaster didn't avoid was drag. With the rear engine operating,
the propeller sucked air around the rather abrupt aft part of the fuselage.
When the engine quit, the airflow seperated from the aft fuselage causing
drag. The climb rate with only the front engine operating is not, shall we
say, awe inspiring.

D.

Joe Kultgen wrote in message 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.

Those engines also caused the tragic crash that ended the program.

D.

Roy wrote in message 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.

If the props on the P-38 were any closer together, they would have been
hitting something besides air. Twin engine airplanes aren't harder to
control so long as the engineers did their job properly.

D.

Eric R Snow wrote in message The design which uses a short
central fuselage with two long outboard ones (are those outboard ones
called fuselages?) which support the tail isn't used anymore, is it?

Embraer in Brazil makes (made?) a counter-insurgency fighter with the same
lay-out. It resembles the OV-10 Bronco. Adam Aircraft in the US is
certificating a twin boom design, although with center-line thrust.
Excepting for center-line thrust designs, twin booms don't make economic
sense. They require more materials, more man-hours, and have more drag
inducing intersections than traditional twin engine designs.

D.

On Sun, 24 Aug 2003 05:16:44 GMT, "Capt. Doug"
wrote:

Roy wrote in message 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.

If the props on the P-38 were any closer together, they would have been
hitting something besides air. Twin engine airplanes aren't harder to
control so long as the engineers did their job properly.

D.

Jeffrey Ethell, the author of those great color photo books of WWII
aviation, died in a P-38. http://www.aafo.com/news/old/ethell.htm

P-38's tended to snap inverted on loss of an engine, especially on
takeoff (low airspeed, high power). The only antidote was to chop
power immediately. Ironically, Jeff Ethell wrote of this behavior in
an article I read in Flying, IIRC, shortly before his death.

Pete Keillor

In article , Leo Reed wrote:
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)

yes, i have seen both the History Channel and "Black Sheep" versions
of the incident. this a long thread, i may have missed some, but
no one has mentioned the range of the P38.

Lindberg is credited with discovering how to lean out the fuel
mix safely, adding 50% to the range spec'd by the manufacturer.
his efforts resulted in the Yamamoto score. sez here, anyway.

--Loren

"Joe Kultgen" wrote in message
.net...
In article ,
says...
Watching the history channel about the P38. A plane which has
interested me since I was little. The design which uses a short
central fuselage with two long outboard ones (are those outboard ones
called fuselages?) which support the tail isn't used anymore, is it?
If not,why? Since this plane was, in it's day, considered a great
plane. Idle minds want to know.
ERS



Someone already mentioned the P-61:

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/air_power/ap25.htm

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/air_power/ap3.htm

There's an interesting article in todays (Aug 24, 2003) "Dayton Daily News"
about the T-82. That plane was based on using two P-51H models and joining
them together at the wong and horizontal stabilizer. There is a static
model on display at the Air Force Museum at Wright Patternson:

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/air_power/ap34.htm

The article mentions that 282 of the P-82's were built, and only 5 were
known to have survived into the 1990's. There is some controversy about one
of the aircraft. In 1966 the aircraft was a static display at a Texas air
base, and when it was supposed to be re-inventoried at Wright-Patternson the
Confederate Air Force asked and was given permission to restore the plane to
flying status. It was the only one of it's kind in flying status. Since
the the Confederate Air Force sold the plane which was against the agreement
they had in place with US Air Force Musuem at Wright-Patternson (main
location). Actually there are two pages of articles, a lot of stuff is
gone, mussing from the museum inventories around the nation. It seems there
was sloppy bookeeping and artifacts could easily get into the hands of
private collectors. That's what the article alleges, anyway. One
interesting item missing was the original wood pattern used by the foundry
that cast the alumium block for the Wright 1903 machine.

Mark Fields

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.


Anybody remember the movie "The flight of the Phoenix", which featured
the C-119?

I seem to remember in the book, that the P-38 was chosen because of it's
range. The distance that had to be covered was large. The Lightnings
sortied before The Bettys took off. The Japanese squadron were flying
quite low, and the P-38s dove on them. They took out the Zeros and
wrecked one of the two Bettys, the one with Isoroku aboard. He was on a
"rally the troops" tour to bolster the morale.

I can't remember the name of the book, but it was a definitive narration
of the War in the Pacific.

Leo (pearland, tx)

Tom wrote:
And Cessna manufactured a twin engine, twin boom plane.

The engine were mounted at the front and rear of the cabin/cockpit.


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

I used to hear them refered to as "Mix-Masters".

Capt. Doug wrote:
Dave Martindale wrote in message The Skymaster avoids this.


What the Skymaster didn't avoid was drag. With the rear engine operating,
the propeller sucked air around the rather abrupt aft part of the fuselage.
When the engine quit, the airflow seperated from the aft fuselage causing
drag. The climb rate with only the front engine operating is not, shall we
say, awe inspiring.

D.




I seem to recall that it was normal to taxi a skymaster on the rear engine
alone, which looked a little weird when you saw the plane comming at
you on the taxiway!

Capt. Doug wrote:
Eric R Snow wrote in message The design which uses a short
central fuselage with two long outboard ones (are those outboard ones
called fuselages?) which support the tail isn't used anymore, is it?


Embraer in Brazil makes (made?) a counter-insurgency fighter with the same
lay-out. It resembles the OV-10 Bronco. Adam Aircraft in the US is
certificating a twin boom design, although with center-line thrust.
Excepting for center-line thrust designs, twin booms don't make economic
sense. They require more materials, more man-hours, and have more drag
inducing intersections than traditional twin engine designs.

D.



What about the moskeeto?

"Leo Reed" wrote in message
...
I seem to remember in the book, that the P-38 was chosen because of it's
range. The distance that had to be covered was large.

IIRC, the P-38 had a terrible fuel-consumption rate, and they had to equip
them with special drop tanks for that mission. But there were no P-51Ds
around at the time.

They also had a reputation for skidding badly in turns and had to use their
speed to compete with ME-109s in Europe. Otherwise they were dead ducks.

Or so said some former P-38 pilot on TV a decade or two ago.

Ed Huntress