Lockheed P-38 "Lightning" ( eng. Lockheed P-38 Lightning , translated - "Lightning" ) - an American heavy twin-engine fighter . Designed in accordance with the concept of a heavy high-altitude fighter, put forward by the U.S. Army Aviation in 1937. It was used as a long-range escort fighter, attack aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft .
| P-38 Lightning | |
|---|---|
 P-38J-20-LO "Yippee" in flight. | |
| Type of | fighter |
| Developer |  Lockheed martin |
| Manufacturer | Lockheed ( Burbank , California ) Vultee ( Nashville , Tennessee ) |
| Chief Designer | Clarence "Kelly" Johnson |
| The first flight | January 27, 1939 |
| Start of operation | 1941 |
| End of operation | 1965 ( Honduras ) [1] |
| Status | withdrawn from service |
| Operators | US Air Force |
| Years of production | 1940 - 1945 |
| Units produced | 10 037 [2] |
| Unit cost | US $ 97 147 in 1944 [3] |
The P-38 had an unusual design - the aircraft was sold according to a two-beam scheme with the cockpit and armament located in the gondola between them. Luftwaffe pilots called this plane “the devil with a double tail” (der Gabelschwanz-Teufel), and the Japanese christened it “two planes, one pilot” (2 飛行 機 、 1 パ イ ロ ッ ト Ni hikōki, ippairotto). The P-38 was used to solve many problems: diving and horizontal flight, attacking ground targets, conducting night operations, and photo reconnaissance. At the Pacific theater of operations, he was often used as a long-range escort fighter (for this, additional drop tanks were attached under the wings).
Content
- 1 Performance characteristics
- 2 Design Features
- 3 Combat use
- 4 Images
- 5 notes
- 6 Literature
Performance Specifications
The characteristics of the P-38L modification are given. Data source: Francillon, 1987, p. 185; Loftin, 1985.
- Specifications
- Crew : 1 (pilot)
- Length : 11.53 m
- Wing span : 15.85 m
- Height : 3.91 m
- Wing area: 30,472 m²
- Wing Elongation Ratio : 8.26
- Wing Profile : NACA 23016 / NACA 4412
- Empty weight: 5806 kg
- Normal take-off weight: 9389 kg
- Maximum take-off weight : 9798 kg
- Fuel tank capacity: 1,552 l
- Powerplant : 2 × 12-cylinder V-shaped liquid cooling Allison V-1710-111
- Engine power: 2 × 1475 l. from. (2 × 1085 kW)
- Front drag coefficient at zero lift: 0.0268
- Equivalent resistance area: 0.82 m²
- Flight characteristics
- Maximum speed: 666 km / h at 7620 m
- Cruising speed : 467 km / h
- Stall Speed: 170 km / h
- Practical range: 725 km
- Ferry range: 4185 km (with PTB)
- Practical ceiling : 13,410 m
- Rate of climb : 24.1 m / s
- Climb time: 6095 m in 7 minutes
- Wing load: 308.1 kg / m²
- Thrust -weight ratio : 230 W / kg
- Aerodynamic quality : 13.5
- Armament
- Rifle Cannon:
- 1 × 20 mm gun Hispano M2 with 150 patr.
- 4 × 12.7 mm M2 machine guns with 500 patr.
- Unguided missiles : 10 × 127 mm HVAR missiles
- Bombs : 2 × up to 908 kg under the wing
- Outboard fuel tanks: 2 × 1136 liters under the wing
Design Features
The first modifications to the P-38 earned a controversial reputation. On the one hand, the aircraft was tenacious and forgave many piloting errors, on the other hand, it had a very significant drawback - the P-38 was extremely unstable at high speeds with a steep dive. When a certain speed was reached, getting the machine out of the dive became almost impossible, which led to exceeding the tensile strength, and the P-38 lost its tail.
After a series of studies, it turned out that the compressibility effect of air [4] was the cause of everything, causing a shift in the point of application of the lifting force behind the elevator, which made it difficult to exit the peak [5] . This problem was solved by installing special brake flaps that prevented this effect during a dive.
The P-38 was unusually quiet for the fighter - the exhaust was muffled by turbocharging . The aircraft was easy to fly and forgave many pilots mistakes. Early models had a low angular roll speed, which did not allow them to be used as a fighter aircraft. The P-38 was the only aircraft manufactured in the United States throughout the war.
Combat use
Widely used by the US Air Force during World War II , especially at the Pacific Theater of War and the Sino-Burmese-Indian Theater of War . At the Southwestern Pacific Theater, the P-38 remained almost until the very end of the war (until a significant number of P-51D Mustangs entered the army) as the main long-range fighter of the U.S. Army. The two most successful fighter pilots in the history of American military aviation flew on the P-38 - Richard Ira Bong and Thomas McGuire , as well as the famous French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery (died in flight over the Mediterranean Sea in the summer of 1944, allegedly was shot down by German Bf. 109 ).
Also on account of P-38 was a daring operation to eliminate the Japanese admiral Yamamoto on April 18, 1943 over one of the Pacific islands - 18 Lightnings were intercepted and shot down by a G4M bomber , on which Yamamoto flew, as well as Zero fighter cover, the admiral died.
Images
Notes
- ↑ "Honduran Air Force." Archived on April 26, 2003. aeroflight.co.uk.
- ↑ Francillon, 1987, p. 165.
- ↑ Army Air Forces Statistical Digest - World War II Archived November 2, 2012.
- ↑ [ https://helpiks.org/7-84809.html . . √ helpiks.org. Date of treatment December 26, 2018.
- ↑ [ http://www.cardarmy.ru/gallery/p38.htm P-38] . www.cardarmy.ru. Date of treatment December 26, 2018.
Literature
- Francillon, René J. Lockheed aircraft since 1913. - Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1987. - P. 160-185. - 566 p. - ISBN 0-87021-897-2 .
- Loftin LK, Jr. Quest for performance: The evolution of modern aircraft . - Washington, DC: NASA Scientific and Technical Information Branch, 1985.
- Kotelnikov V.R. Aviation Lend-Lease. - M .: Russian Knights Foundation, 2015. - 368 p. - 1000 copies. - ISBN 985-5-9906036-3-9.
- Kharuk A.I. Fighters of the Second World War. The most complete encyclopedia. - M .: Yauza, EKSMO, 2012 .-- 368 p. - 1,500 copies - ISBN 978-5-699-58917-3 .