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Dont miss this excellent P-38 review!

Cleartheprop

Cleartheprop

Charter Member
My choice was made and the P-38 in my hangar already when I read this review but it for sure can help you make up your mind when you're asking yourself which P-38 is the best for you.
I even asked the question here and thanks to you (and especially Jankees), I managed to make the right decision for me and go for the (SU or...FSD) P-38 !:bump:
Thanks for the review David ! :ernae:
 
While I had already come to the same conclusion as David before reading the review, I have to say, it was cool seeing the comparison done like that, nice work David and thanks for the HU on the review.
 
A really good, and fair, write up on both products. After reading it it's fairly easy to make a choice.

But a couple of points mentioned early in the article need correcting. One is:
"By war’s end, Lightnings had accounted for more Japanese aircraft than any other Allied type."
You see this claim everywhere on the Web, and it's incorrect. Both the F6F Hellcat and the F4U Corsair claimed more Japanese aircraft than the P-38 Lightning: 5,156 and 2,140 respectively compared to the Lightning's 1,694. How the statement should read is "Lightnings had accounted for more Japanese aircraft than any other USAAF type".

The other comment mentioned in the article that's incorrect is:
"Most remarkable of all, the Lightning was one of a very small class of fighters that could engage in a successful turning fight with a Japanese Zero. This was in part a feature of having two engines: by extending his maneuvering flaps, and then by giving more power to his outside engine, a pilot could “push” his aircraft harder into a turn."

No Allied fighter could turn with the A6M Zero (or the Ki-43 Hayabusa for that matter) at speeds under 250 mph, not even the fabled Spitfire; as pilots in No.1 Wing found to their discomfort over Darwin in 1943. And while differential engine power settings combined with maneuver flaps was a not uncommon tactic used by P-38 pilots in the Mediterranean to gain a decided advantage over Luftwaffe fighters, no Lightning pilot in his right mind would run the risk of dropping his speed to under 200 mph against a Zero. At that speed he has lost turn rate, acceleration and climb rate.
 
A good review. I have both of them, and they are both great (well, they are P-38s, after all...) I liked that YouTube video of the gun sight. That was cool. He called it "gyro stabilized" though, and I think that was all done with optics, same as HUDs of today, but I wouldn't bet a hundred pesos on it. I do like the FSD exterior better, but I like the SU VC better than the FSD. Great models each.
 
Great review and I think both products are excellent. I bought the SU offering because it was the first one available and the price was a great value. Initially it had serious bugs, but the new version cleared up the bugs and I'm happy with it. Would I like a modern cockpit? Sure, having a GPS right on the instrument panel is convenient and I have rearranged many panels for such conveniences. I do like the way the SU P-38 handles. She is a joy to fly and as for engine management, there is a guage available that will allow you to add engine failures if you exceed certain parameters. You can find it at SOH in the Flight Dynamics forum.

You can find it here.
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=23054
 
Pips said:
How the statement should read is "Lightnings had accounted for more Japanese aircraft than any other USAAF type".
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll make that correction.

Pips said:
The other comment mentioned in the article that's incorrect is:
"Most remarkable of all, the Lightning was one of a very small class of fighters that could engage in a successful turning fight with a Japanese Zero. This was in part a feature of having two engines: by extending his maneuvering flaps, and then by giving more power to his outside engine, a pilot could “push” his aircraft harder into a turn."

No Allied fighter could turn with the A6M Zero (or the Ki-43 Hayabusa for that matter) at speeds under 250 mph, not even the fabled Spitfire; as pilots in No.1 Wing found to their discomfort over Darwin in 1943. And while differential engine power settings combined with maneuver flaps was a not uncommon tactic used by P-38 pilots in the Mediterranean to gain a decided advantage over Luftwaffe fighters, no Lightning pilot in his right mind would run the risk of dropping his speed to under 200 mph against a Zero. At that speed he has lost turn rate, acceleration and climb rate.
Click to expand...

My statement was based on a first-hand account quoted in The Great Book of World War II Airplanes (which I can't give a page number for right now because I'm away from my books). What you say here about speed makes sense, but I don't remember that being a qualifier in the account I read.

Stiz, I will correct your spelling too.
 
Corrections are now online; I also added something about the ten-thousands needle on the SU altimeter.
 
Ya. Good review! I liked it.

The question is, what model did everyone pick? The one modeled by Gibbage, or the one modeled by Gibbage? Hummmmm. :engel016:

P.S. No P-38 ever flew combat with a "Gyro Stabilized" (K-14) gunsight. There was a prototype with one mounted, but the bulk of them were diverted too P-51's and some P-47's. The P-38 used a standard optical gunsight (N-9).
 
Gibbage said:
P.S. No P-38 ever flew combat with a "Gyro Stabilized" (K-14) gunsight. There was a prototype with one mounted, but the bulk of them were diverted too P-51's and some P-47's. The P-38 used a standard optical gunsight (N-9).
Click to expand...

Dang! Someone tried to tell me that earlier in this thread, but I didn't get it.
 
Ya. Its just optics, in that you can only see the sight if you look down it properly. Much like modern "red dot" gunsights on rifles. So just calling it a reflector gunsight is accurate. Doing this in FSX is difficult, and honestly, not worth the problems. A "Gyro" gunsight like the K-14 has the pipper move with the aircraft, showing you were your bullets will land at a spacified distance (typically 300M). So when your pulling lead, if the pipper is on target, you WILL hit. Its also called a lead computing gunsight. It also works like the optical in that if you move your head, the sight will vanish. You must look through the sight correctly to see the retical.

I know, a lot of worthless info, but I figured some people may like to know.
 
Gibbage said:
Doing this in FSX is difficult, and honestly, not worth the problems.
Click to expand...

I agree. It's a cool effect, but with no weapons it's not something I actually use -- unlike the collimated FPMs that we saw from Aerosoft in 2008 and Iris in 2009, which are immediately practical.
 
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