FINALLY saw a P-38 fly

Much to my delight and surprise, Porky II, the "Planes of Fame" museum's
flying P-38, was at the Quad City Airshow yesterday, in Davenport, Iowa.

See http://www.alexisparkinn.com/aviation_videos.htm for a couple of
low-res videos of this P-38 in action...

(Just scroll down to see the P-38 videos.)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

That's pretty big for an insect, Jay. Are you sure it was a fly? :-)

--
Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)


"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:RiTve.109135$xm3.88742@attbi_s21...
And I thought that Oshkosh this year would finally bring my
long-anticipated viewing of a P-38 in flight, with Glacier Girl's
anticipated participation.

Much to my delight and surprise, Porky II, the "Planes of Fame" museum's
flying P-38, was at the Quad City Airshow yesterday, in Davenport, Iowa.

We flew over in the morning, and were able to get a hand's on, close up
view of this awesome plane. Talk about perfection! It looks like it just
rolled off the assembly line! In my opinion, this aircraft completely
stole the show from the Thunderbirds and everyone else who did their usual
excellent job. (Although the T-birds flew short a plane -- I suppose one
of the pilots was under the weather?)

Even though the Lightning only did one low pass during the airshow (and a
bunch of mid-level passes up around 500 feet AGL), it was still the thrill
of a lifetime to see that beautiful forked-tail devil in flight.

I had never heard a P-38 start up or take off, and I was amazed at the
silky smoothness of those huge Allison engines. Compared to the Corsair
or even the Mustang, it sounds like a precision machine working in an oil
bath.

And seeing it coming right at you -- wow! What a great silhouette, and
remarkably small, given the plane's immense (relatively, for its day)
size. From the front, it's obvious that Kelly Johnson put a great deal of
effort into aerodynamic slipperiness...

QC always puts on a great airshow, but this one really topped them all.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

One thing that impressed me when I saw Glacier Girl at SnF was the way Steve
Hinton flew a really tight, relatively slow pattern with it. It looked to
be a much better flying aircraft in the slow regime than most of the other
WWII fighters I've seen - particularly P-51's. Also, the P-38's climb angle
after takeoff was much higher than the other WWII fighters I've seen.