Inside the P-38 LIGHTNING — “The Fork-Tailed Devil”

Описание: INSIDE THE P-38 LIGHTNING — “THE FORK-TAILED DEVIL”

In 1939, the Lockheed P-38 Lightning shattered every “normal” fighter layout: twin booms, twin engines, and a central nacelle built around concentrated nose firepower. Designed under the young genius of Clarence “Kelly” Johnson and the team that would become Skunk Works, the P-38 delivered a brutal combination of range, climb, and head-on lethality that defined air combat across two oceans.

This documentary breaks down what made the Lightning revolutionary—its clustered nose armament (no convergence problems), counter-rotating props, and high-altitude performance powered by General Electric turbo-superchargers paired with the Allison Engine Company V-1710. Then we go inside the problems that nearly broke it: compressibility, Mach tuck, dive recovery failures, and how wind-tunnel work and NACA testing led to the dive flaps that finally unlocked the Lightning’s limits.
Finally, we cover the mission no other Allied fighter could realistically pull off—Operation Vengeance—the long-range intercept that brought down Isoroku Yamamoto.

From the Aleutians to North Africa, from bomber escort to Pacific energy fighting, this is the full story of the aircraft that started a legend.

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