Lynn in StLou wrote:
®i©ardo wrote:
Neil Hoskins wrote:
"Peter Twydell" wrote in message
...
In message , Neil
Hoskins writes
It's a clever name, because on our side of the Pond we can claim
that it's
named after the English Electric Lightning. So everybody's
happy... quite
unusual.

Never heard of the P-38? I think Lockheed got there first.

Yes I have. And clearly they did.
It's just... oh, why bother...

Well, according to Lockheed's contemporary advertisement it was the
pilots who called it Lightning, although their claim that British
pilots were that impressed by the aircraft is not borne out by history.


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True...the Brits were not impressed. But IIRC, we also gave them
Lightnings with no turbosuperchargers and the props both spun in the
same direction. Our own forces referred to them as castrated.

Lynn in StLou

It does seem, however, that the name originated from British sources.

"Built in large numbers throughout the war, the Lightning - as the type
was first named by the RAF- appeared in 18 variants. The RAF, however,
received only three of 143 aircraft similar to the P-38D which followed
the P-38 into production - their performance being unacceptable to the
RAF. This resulted from the fact that Lockheed were not permitted to
export aircraft with turbocharged engines, making it necessary to
install the unsupercharged 775kW Allison V-1710-33 engines which had
proved to be underpowered in the XP-38 prototype."

--
Moving things in still pictures!