11 TT in sixteen days. Prototype destroyed in a crash (carb ice), which might actually have accelerated P-38 approval for production.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/sKYlLVkYwWg[/youtube]

..great history and stories!

I believe the prototype had sleeker looking nacelles because the Allisons had a different kind of gearbox (in-line vs offset) that didn't work out.

Excellent video on the XP-38 and history leading up to the development of the prototype and first flights.

One of my all-time favorite aircraft. I wonder why Lockheed didn't reinforce the empennage mount to the booms with a dorsal fin similar to what North American did to the later P-51 Mustangs since early dive tests resulted in separation during pullout.

Dan

I’ve worked on many, and restored a few, Warbirds including 3 P-38 restorations.
In the time period the P-38 was developed there wasn’t any high speed wind tunnel available. It was the 1st design to be affected by Mach Tuck, where the high pressure under the wing moves aft. In the P-38 the center fuselage and boom arrangement of the design had an impact on the high pressure movement under the wing. This pushed up aft of the CG and lowers the nose. The nature of the engine setup with the Turbosuperchargers allow high altitude operations. That height allowed much higher speeds in dives which triggers the Mach Tuck.
The Mach Tuck situation is one the airframe puts you in. Lockheed tried a boost tab on the elevator to muscle the airframe out of the dive but it broke the tail off and both plane and pilot were lost. At that point Tony LeVier was hired to replace the pilot lost.
At that time the only way to recover control was to reach denser air at lower altitudes which slowed things and allowed a pull out.
An electric motor driven flap was developed and installed as a dive recovery flap to counter this. (Edit) C-54 Transport with these kits was lost enroute to the UK.
Even with the Dive Recovery Flaps the P-38 had the lowest VNE of the fighters of that time period.
A great Fighter and I’m glad we had them when we needed fighters. But, early generation of tech. In the late 30s through the 60s Aeronautical Tech advanced rapidly, similar to Electronics of the last 40 years.
NAA and NACA developed the tall vertical with the extension for the P-51 with a Merlin. NACA had a fleet of them. On the P-51 when dove from high altitudes Pilot’s would notice a shadow move over the top of the wing with the sun in the right position. This was an area of Supersonic airflow. NACA added some shaped metal plates over the gunbays on the wing and would bolt on test shapes. They would dive to Mach .8ish and created a flying Supersonic wind tunnel for testing.
3 of the NACA P-51s are still flying today.

Very cool. Thanks for the history lesson.

Did you notice from the pictures of the prototype and other pictures the direction of the rotation of the engines was reversed? I forget what the final configuration was.

--paul

The final configuration was counter-rotating and had both engines being critical, unlike this prototype.

The original engine configuration had a longer than wanted ground run on takeoff. Swapping motors improved that.
That was told via Tony Levier.

Cool story indeed. One correction. The dive flaps were not on a sunken ship. They were flown in on a C54 Skymaster in March 44. An RAF fighter mistook it for a FW200 and shot down.

Mr. Palmer, thank you very much for your perspective, lots of hands-on experience which is priceless to me.

My Dad was an aircraft tooling specialist working at Lockheed when Ralph Virden crashed after the tail broke off on November 4, 1941 (or November 5 depending on which source). He heard the unmistakable sound of a P-38 totally out of control and tumbling with the sound of the props hitting the air stream at various angles.

Yes, the 400 sets of dive brakes being sent to the UK for retrofit were lost when the C-54 they were loaded onto was accidentally shot down by a British aircraft over the North Atlantic in 1944. There was not enough time to put another shipment together before the end of the war (plus there were higher priorities at Lockheed at the time).

Tony LeVier started at Lockheed on May 2, 1941 as a Hudson ferry pilot as well as production test pilot. He started flying the P-38 in the spring of 1942 as a production test pilot, joining the engineering test pilot department in July of 1942.

Dan

Tony had great stories. Was such a treat to talk with him when he would drop by during these restorations.

Early P-38s had a canopy top hatch that opened on the left side and flipped up being hinged on the right side. Both side windows cranked down vis a handle on each side of the cockpit.
The top hatch had a pin on the front and rear that engaged into receptacles on the front windshield frame and the rear canopy bow, both shaped metal structures. The windshield frame was a part of the fusel nose and the rear bow was attached to the spar of the wing.
Tony spoke of doing a series of dive recoveries at various speeds and G Loads as a part of testing.
During one recovery it suddenly got windy in the cockpit and he glanced up to find the top hatch gone. When G Loads increased during the testing the 2 frames the top hatch mounted to opened up as the nose would flex down under G Load but the massive wing structure didn't move. Eventually the distance between the frames opened up to the point the pins didn't engage enough and the canopy left.
Tony spoke of a meeting at a Muroc Lake (now Edwards AFB) diner afterward where a new design for a hinge and latch for the top canopy was devised being drawn on napkins. From that point on the upper canopy was hinged to swing aft with latches on both front corners. It looked like a Rube Goldberg design when I 1st saw the setup and sometime later I heard him talk of this and understood then why it looked very homebuilt like.

I only had a few occasions to talk to Tony LeVier and each time he treated me like he had known me for years, like an old friend. He was open about his experiences and loved questions about them. A wonderful gentleman.

Last opportunity for me was during the 40th anniversary symposium put on by Warren Bodie in 1977. Here is a picture of him I took after a flight in Dave Tallichet's P-38L-5-LO.
I still have all the tickets and flyer announcing the extra "special fly-in event" at Lockheed, Burbank.

Among the other things I learned … that the family name is spelled Loughead.

Allan and Malcolm Loughead (pronounced Lockheed) organized The Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company in 1916 located on State Street in Santa Barbara.

The two brothers eventually legalized the phonetic spelling of their name and from that time forward, they were the Lockheed brothers.

They ran into hard times in the 20s since there were so many cheap surplus WWI airplanes available, few were interested in new aircraft. Malcolm separated from the company to develop an invention of his own for the automotive world. His idea was to use a hydraulic actuator to provide brakes for all four wheels (up to this time, cars only had brakes on the rear wheels and were mechanically actuated IIRC).

Allan teamed up with Jack Northrop to design the Lockheed Vega which had many design features ahead of its time including a cantilevered high wing. This put the company on the map.

Dan

Ah, so Malcolm is the one to blame.

I have '53 MG TD that has Lockheed brakes. The car gets driven maybe 80 miles a year. Yet every year when I bring it out of storage I have to spend half a day fiddling with the brakes to get any stopping capabilities at all.