"Keith Willshaw" wrote in
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"Cub Driver" wrote in message
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They famously emasculated the Lightning by burdening it with two
left-turning engines.

The problem with the version of the P-38 supplied to the RAF
was the inferior supercharger supplied on the export version
not the fact that it had 2 engines turning the same way.

While this is true, the previos Dan was correct. The P-38 had significant
tail flutter problems with "inword" rotateing engines. This was fixed on
American P-38's by having the engines rotate "outword" in opposite
directions, however the British version had two engines which in addition
to lacking the General Electric B-5 turbosuperchargers also rotated in
the same direction. This lead to one of the engines generating the same
effect that had been a problem with the P-38 prototypes.