How One Mechanic's "Stupid" Wire Trick Made P-38s Outmaneuver Every Zero

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Why one aircraft mechanic installed unauthorized piano wire in P-38 control systems during WW2 — and saved 80 to 100 American pilots' lives. This World War 2 story reveals how a six-inch piece of wire changed aerial combat in the Pacific.

August 17, 1943. Technical Sergeant James McKenna, an aircraft mechanic with the Fifth Air Force at Dobodura airfield, New Guinea, watched another pilot prepare for a mission against Japanese Zeros. The P-38 Lightning was fast and powerful. But it couldn't turn with a Zero. The control cables had slack. A three-eighths inch delay between stick movement and aircraft response. That tiny delay was killing pilots. Every training manual said the cable tension was within specifications. Engineering officers called it acceptable tolerance.

They were all wrong.

What McKenna discovered that August morning wasn't about following regulations. It was about physics and leverage in a way that contradicted everything the Army approved. He bent a six-inch piece of piano wire into a Z-shape and installed it as a cable tensioner without authorization. Lieutenant Hayes flew the modified aircraft that morning and destroyed three Zeros in seven minutes. By September, forty P-38s had the modification spreading mechanic to mechanic across the Pacific. And pilots survived.

This technique spread unofficially through fighter squadrons crew chief to crew chief, improving kill ratios from two-to-one against Americans to nearly even before Lockheed integrated it into the P-38J model. The principles discovered at Dobodura continued to influence aircraft control systems through the Vietnam War.

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