Official FlightLine RC 1600mm P-38 Lightning Thread

[rifleman_btx]

I've not done much if anything for details. I just love being in control of birds I've always admired and for some wished I could have seen fly in real life. That's what it's all about for me, however, with my n9mb project I'm going to do my best to make it as close as I can. I just hope with this one I can do it justice.

[SoLongSidekick]

I wasn't going to add any details at first save for painting the guns and adding some smoke grunge behind the superchargers, but then it started slowly as it usually does.

- Bought the upgraded landing gear with the plane originally for better landings on rough surfaces, but then realized just how much better they look than the stock ones.
- Then I saw pmisuinas's post about using a pattern wheel to do so, and realized just how easy it is to add really nice looking rivets.
- Then I saw a few pictures of other P-38 models and realized how much just painting black over the panel lines and recessed "rivets" then wiping the excess paint away really makes a model look like a real warbird.
- Then I decided that not only was I not going to use one of the included liveries, I wasn't going to replicate a historical aircraft at all. I set about looking at literally every single decal set that Callie offers and picking the ones I liked the best and combining them with my custom nose art to create the random decal set from hell.
- Then I realized that Quanum bomb dropper setup I got from HobbyKing for fun would look really cool on this aircraft, but that I would need 2 since there's no real centered place to mount it.
- Then I remembered that I have a bunch of carbon fiber tubes, R/C switches, and electric igniters left over from turning my Quanum Nova Pro into a bottle rocket gunship. So I designed a 3D printed rack to hold 4 tubes under each wing set up to ripple fire.

So yeah that got out of hand really fast. My family has a house south of San Felipe in Baja California, and that was always a big part of my life so that's where the design came from (BSM for Bahia Santa Maria, where our house is). Here's a few mockups I was working on. Only the in-air mockups have the paint changes I'm thinking about, the other two are just nose art tests.

I'm leaning towards the red accents but would love to hear anyone else's opinions. I'm also thinking about painting either the rudder or elevator control surface black; the mockup shows the rudders done but I'm leaning more towards the elevator control surface. Also, I'd love to hear some opinions as to whether I should continue with the black anti-glare panel and do the insides of the engine nacelles black as well. Thoughts?

[rifleman_btx]

I like the black and yellow spinners and nose. The shark teeth on the booms are a nice touch as well.

[SoLongSidekick]

That's funny; I was originally set on yellow but last night I was leaning really hard towards red, only to favor yellow again today. This is why I never get anything done haha.

What do you think about the tail surface painting? The more I look at it the more I think the elevator is the way to go, if I want to paint any part black at all. I went looking for the image that originally gave me the idea, but of course now I can't find it.

I did find this French livery though, and might extend my anti-glare panels to the inboard nacelles and then do the black tail scheme of this plane: http://img.wp.scn.ru/camms/ar/298/pics/21_6.jpg

Still not sure though.

[crxmanpat]

I love the way mine came out. Started with the red spinner and added the yellow and blue. It really sets this plane off.

[SoLongSidekick]

Has anyone tried mirroring their P-38? The Red Bull P-38 looks fan-freaking-tastic.

[rifleman_btx]

To the black rudder color I do like it. To the red bull plane, I think tower sells one modeled after that plane.. however it looks to be discontinued

[Ole-Timer]

The Red Bull P-38 was Lefty Gardner’s.... White Lightning
Suffered an in flight fire and had to be ditched in a field by his son.

[rifleman_btx]

One thing I loved about these planes, they come out of a ditching like champs.

[SoLongSidekick]

One thing I loved about these planes, they come out of a ditching like champs.

Are you sure about that? I am a... well I like to say "amateur historian", as it sounds a lot better than "guy who's done an embarrassing amount of research into aviation and particularly the Pacific Campaign of WWII." Anyways, I can't remember any specifics but I got the impression that the P-38 was a poor ditcher. But I am also well aware that the P-38, like the M4 Sherman tank, suffered from a ridiculous amount of defamation and half-true rumors. There are actually very few even aviation buffs that give the P-38 the credit it deserves for helping to win the war in BOTH campaigns. The Pacific Campaign is somewhat universally acknowledged (thank you Richard Bong and Thomas McGuire), but the Mustang gets all the credit for the European Campaign. The P-38 was the first aircraft capable of covering bombers all the way to the target (the P-38 outranged the contemporary models of even the P-51), and it slugged it out alone against the Luftwaffe during the critical time between 1943 and early 1944 while they were massively outnumbered because the Allies had not yet established air superiority. Besides the unfair derision the P-38 received, it did have some real teething issues like a slow roll rate, engine explosions, and the well known compressability issue. Another major problem was poor tactics and training. The P-51 had the major advantage of having training units set up by the combat organizations themselves, and this allowed tactics and tips to be freely shared. The P-38 never had a godsend like this. Also, the dual engine training during WWII for fighter pilots was beyond laughable. The P-38 was a complex aircraft and pilots were not trained up to a respectable level at all (most P-38 pilots got their dual engine training in the Curtiss AT-9, a plane where you couldn't even feather the props). Unfortunately by the time the issues were solved with the P-38J-25-LO and onwards, the 8th AF had already decided to switch to the P-51 instead of going with upgraded P-38s (unfortunately a big part of this was the first upgrade kits containing the dive flaps and hydraulic ailerons were shot down on their cargo flight to England in a friendly fire incident, which delayed upgrades by months [I'm positive I saw this mentioned earlier in this thread, and it is a very important piece of P-38 history]). Every American WWII test pilot that I've seen answer this question said that the P-38L was the best aircraft of the war and what they'd choose to go into battle with.

The P-38 has everything I would want in a plane to ride into battle. Perfect armament, with 4x .50s for most situations and the 20mm for when you need some extra punch. Armament clustered in the nose, no convergence patterns and also essentially infinite range. Two engines, so you can make it home if one dies or gets shot up and unbeatable speed. Tricycle landing gear for safer landings, better visibility and AoA while taxiing. Astoundingly tiny frontal cross section. With the P-38J-25-LO (the addition of automatic dive recovery flaps and hydraulically assisted ailerons) onward insane maneuverability, the ability to out-turn, out-climb, and out-run anything the Luftwaffe could throw at you. And to top it all it the P-38 is damn sexy.

So... back to what we were actually talking about, and what started that whole diatribe, is the hope that I ingested some hearsay and logged it in my brain as fact. I mean, looking at the airframe it does make total sense that it would ditch fine. It seems like there's no way it could roll or flip due to the fact that it's a big box with a low vertical CG, and as long as it's brought in at a reasonable AoA there's nothing that could easily snag. Do you know where you read about the P-38 being a good ditcher? If anyone wants to read some great stories about flying the P-38 I just read Brave and Funny Memories of WWII: By a P-38 Fighter Pilot and really enjoyed it. The book was actually put together by the pilot's wife, who did so by combing through her husband's notes after he developed Alzheimers. She made the book partially so her husband could read it and remember the experiences. I found it randomly online while looking for P-38 liveries and read it on Kindle Unlimited with the 30 day free trial.

That was fun, I need to nerd out more often.

[rifleman_btx]

Well I'm sure you recall the prototype ditched in a golf course and it handled it well, if they would have had the nonexistent parts to get it operational again I'm sure they could have done it. The big problem was engine flameout on takeoff rolling over and going in inverted. Of course that happens, your done. But as long as you can control your speed and decent it'll ditch. Plus the frame was super strong. Not sure if it was the 38 or not (did the tail end of the booms have to be reinforced due to structural failure?) due to a massive explosion that caused a tbi and loosing long and some short term memory. It sucked to loose some family memories of my kids when they were younger. Things I've done, it's just gone. One of the crappy parts of war, and for what it's worth Iraq sucks.

[rifleman_btx]

I'm watching the "how to fly the P38" on YouTube now. :)

[SoLongSidekick]

To the black rudder color I do like it. To the red bull plane, I think tower sells one modeled after that plane.. however it looks to be discontinued

Thanks, I developed it further and think I like this setup better. The top of the booms as well as the top of the rudder and horizontal stabilizer are black, and because of that I removed the boom stripes. I also continued the anti-glare panels to the insides of the engine nacelles. The wing stripes are really hard to model at this angle, but here's where I got the idea: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....1EzQ0yjxjL.jpg. I also removed the Army Air Forces logo from the side of the boom as it made the whole design look crowded.

I think I'm pretty damn close to my final livery. I did just realize though that the anti-glare panels will interfere with the shark mouths on the inside of the engines, and might make it look funky. What's your opinion? 1) Only do the shark mouths on the outsides of the engines, 2) Don't add the anti-glare panels to the engine nacelles, or 3) Use both the inside shark mouths and anti-glare panels. I'll probably try to mock it up to see what it looks like.

[rifleman_btx]

Shark mouths inside and out, and I would keep the anti glare panels if you can with the sharkmouth, not sure if I like the full black tail or just the vertical stabs. Honestly that would probably be my only question mark on what way to go if it were me. But the rest I surely am digging. Have you thought about just doing the elevator black along with the vertical stabs?

[SoLongSidekick]

Shark mouths inside and out, and I would keep the anti glare panels if you can with the sharkmouth, not sure if I like the full black tail or just the vertical stabs. Honestly that would probably be my only question mark on what way to go if it were me. But the rest I surely am digging. Have you thought about just doing the elevator black along with the vertical stabs?

That's kind of what's pictured in my last mockup, but it's kind of hard to see. The lower surfaces of the tail are not black, just the tops. Only the tops of the booms are black as well. I originally was going to paint just the control surface of the elevator black but then things evolved from there. Did you mean that plus the vertical? Or the entire elevator structure? Thanks for your thoughts, they really help to thoroughly think all this through.

Well I'm sure you recall the prototype ditched in a golf course and it handled it well, if they would have had the nonexistent parts to get it operational again I'm sure they could have done it. The big problem was engine flameout on takeoff rolling over and going in inverted. Of course that happens, your done. But as long as you can control your speed and decent it'll ditch. Plus the frame was super strong. Not sure if it was the 38 or not (did the tail end of the booms have to be reinforced due to structural failure?) due to a massive explosion that caused a tbi and loosing long and some short term memory. It sucked to loose some family memories of my kids when they were younger. Things I've done, it's just gone. One of the crappy parts of war, and for what it's worth Iraq sucks.

I've never read anything about the booms being weak or redesigned because of weakness. They were redesigned a few times as the aircraft was developed to accommodate new features but that's about it as far as I know. Oddly enough, the superchargers were enclosed in an armored ring; but not to protect them from enemy fire. It was to protect the pilot from disintegrating turbines. I thought that was kind of funny.

They also redesigned the booms to try to turn the P-38 into a float plane, although it was a one-off. The booms were bent upwards so the tail surfaces were higher off the ground (or in this case, water). It was a goofy looking thing, and I think the P-38's Wikipedia page has a picture of it.

Yeah the single engine loss on takeoff was especially deadly due to the training deficiency. Even when warned about turning into a dead engine while going around to try to land, many pilots tried it anyways and paid the price. Here's a quote from Capt. Arthur Heiden, who flew the P-38 and instructed on both the P-38 and the P-51:

"The quality of multi-engine training during World War II bordered on the ridiculous. I am convinced that with training methods now in use we could take most of civilian private pilots who might be about to fly the Aztec or Cessna 310, and in ten hours, have a more confident pilot than the ones who flew off to war in the P-38. A P-38 pilot usually got his training in two ways. The first way, of course, was twin-engine advanced training in Curtiss AT-9s, which had the unhappy feature of having propellers you couldn't feather. After sixty hours of this, the student received ten hours of AT-6 gunnery, although he might get his gunnery training in the AT-9, since AT-6s were in short supply.

At this point he had his chance to fly the RP-322 for another twenty hours. The 322, as you know, was the British version of the airplane, and they came with assorted equipment and things on them that nobody could predict. Upon graduation from the RP-322 he was assigned to a P-38 Replacement Training Unit (RTU) or an Operational Training Unit (OTU) for 100 hours or more of fighter training. A second way to get into the P-38 was to transition from single engine fighters. In this event, someone probably took him up in a multi-engine transport or bomber and demonstrated engine shutdown a couple of times after skimming the tech order, a blindfold check, and then Ignoring the check list (not for real fighter pilots!), he blasted off. More than one neophyte has described his first "launch" in a P-38 as being hit in the ass with a snow shovel.

Either method of training, probably, made little difference as neither guy knew that much about multi-engine operations and procedures. True, he had been warned about the magic number of 120 miles per hour his Vme (Vmca) or single-engine control speed. He had swam in glue during a couple of prop featherings while in formation with his instructor. He was, also, warned never to turn into a dead engine, never put down the gear until he had made the field, and never to go around with one caged. That was about it until shortly thereafter the old Allison time bomb blew up, and he was in business the hard way. Right on takeoff. Some people lucked out if the runway was long enough. Some overshot or undershot and they bent the whole thing. Some tried a single-engine go-around anyway, usually with horrible results. Such happenings would make a son of a bitch out of any saint."

I mean I knew the US was hurting for pilots during WWII, but I guarantee training pilots like that ended up costing us way more than properly educating them would have. A twin engine plane is well more than just 2x as complicated as a single engine plane. Here's another quote, this time from Colonel Harold Rau, commanding officer of the 20th fighter group; about just how complicated the early model P-38s were to fight with:

"...let us assume that we have a pilot fresh out of flying school with about a total of twenty-five hours in a P-38, starting out on a combat mission. He is on a deep ramrod, penetration and target support to maximum endurance. He is cruising along with his power set at maximum economy. He is pulling 31" Hg and 2100 RPM. He is auto lean and running on external tanks. His gun heater is off to relieve the load on his generator, which frequently gives out (under sustained heavy load). His sight is off to save burning out the bulb. His combat switch may or may not be on. Flying along in this condition, he suddenly gets "bounced", what to do flashes through his mind. He must turn, he must increase power and get rid of those external tanks and get on his main. So, he reaches down and turns two stiff, difficult gas switches {valves} to main - turns on his drop tank switches, presses his release button, puts the mixture to auto rich (two separate and clumsy operations), increases his RPM, increases his manifold pressure, turns on his gun heater switch (which he must feel for and cannot possibly see), turns on his combat switch and he is ready to fight. At this point, he has probably been shot down or he has done one of several things wrong. Most common error is to push the throttles wide open before increasing RPM. This causes detonation and subsequent engine failure. Or, he forgets to switch back to auto rich, and gets excessive cylinder head temperature with subsequent engine failure.

4. In my limited experience with a P-38 group, we have lost as least four (4) pilots, who when bounced, took no immediate evasive action. The logical assumption is that they were so busy in the cockpit, trying to get organized that they were shot down before they could get going."

The fact that we shoved kids into combat so poorly prepared like that is so sad. Unfortunately lessons learned in war are paid for in blood, as I'm sure you're intimately aware.

[SoLongSidekick]

I think I just realized what you were talking about. Did you mean just the rudder control surfaces and the elevator control surface black? I didn't think of that, but that would be pretty cool without going overboard.

[rifleman_btx]

Yeah I was thinking the elevator plus the vertical stabs. The rudder surfaces would look cool as well.
and of course the one civilian pilot to get a kill was in a P38 none other than Charles Lindbergh.

[rifleman_btx]

In his six months in the Pacific in 1944, Lindbergh took part in fighter bomber raids on Japanese positions, flying 50 combat missions (again as a civilian).^[174] His innovations in the use of Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters impressed a supportive Gen. Douglas MacArthur.^[175] Lindbergh introduced engine-leaning techniques to P-38 pilots, greatly improving fuel consumption at cruise speeds, enabling the long-range fighter aircraft to fly longer range missions. The U.S. Marine and Army Air Force pilots who served with Lindbergh praised his courage and defended his patriotism.^[173][176]

On July 28, 1944, during a P-38 bomber escort mission with the 433rd Fighter Squadron in the Ceram area, Lindbergh shot down a Mitsubishi Ki-51 "Sonia" observation plane, piloted by Captain Saburo Shimada, commanding officer of the 73rd Independent Chutai.^[173][177]

[SoLongSidekick]

Yeah I was thinking the elevator plus the vertical stabs. The rudder surfaces would look cool as well.
and of course the one civilian pilot to get a kill was in a P38 none other than Charles Lindbergh.

Charles Lindbergh's involvement with the P-38 is so interesting. I mean, the dude literally doubled the range of the P-38 from 900 miles (round trip) to 1,800 miles. That's so nuts! And when he outlined this to them, the pilots and crew chiefs were in an uproar because they thought those settings would make the engines explode. He shut them all up pretty instantly when he said he was going to be flying alongside them with the new settings. The doubling of any vehicle's range is a massive upgrade, but especially in the situations where the P-38 was expected to perform: the vast expanses of the Pacific and round trips into Germany with the bombers.

Another funny anecdote I remember about Lindbergh and the P-38 was that soon after he arrived in the Pacific he accidentally ran out of fuel in a P-38 on the taxiway. A pilot was furious about this as he was returning from a mission and sucking fumes out of his gas tanks while trying to land. So he storms into the CP and demands to know which idiot (I'm pretty sure he actually used a profanity but can't remember) parked a P-38 on the taxiway, and Charles Lindbergh stood up and took responsibility. The pilot damn near had a heart attack haha.

Yeah I really started liking that paint idea so I mocked it up. I also moved the skull from the radiator to the rudder, and moved "BSM" to the radiator. I think this one might be it. It's much less busy, and uses less black to more effect. Thanks for the help.

[SoLongSidekick]

In his six months in the Pacific in 1944, Lindbergh took part in fighter bomber raids on Japanese positions, flying 50 combat missions (again as a civilian).^[174] His innovations in the use of Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters impressed a supportive Gen. Douglas MacArthur.^[175] Lindbergh introduced engine-leaning techniques to P-38 pilots, greatly improving fuel consumption at cruise speeds, enabling the long-range fighter aircraft to fly longer range missions. The U.S. Marine and Army Air Force pilots who served with Lindbergh praised his courage and defended his patriotism.^[173][176]

On July 28, 1944, during a P-38 bomber escort mission with the 433rd Fighter Squadron in the Ceram area, Lindbergh shot down a Mitsubishi Ki-51 "Sonia" observation plane, piloted by Captain Saburo Shimada, commanding officer of the 73rd Independent Chutai.^[173][177]

Wait where did you pull that from, Wikipedia? Because I'm almost positive Lindbergh only got to fly that one combat flight where he killed that Sonia. After that the brass was terrified that a national treasure might be killed in combat and sent him home.