WWII, the P-38 in the Pacific

P-38

86’d 56.

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My grandather flew P-38’s during WW2 and relocated to BR to teach young pilots how to fly.

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My father flew the B26 "Widow maker" among several other aircraft. He liked that plane a lot, but he started flying when he was 14 and had a lot of experience by the time the war started.

His skill at landing the B26, got him shipped to Tampa as a flight instructor instead of flying "The Hump" in it.

Legit CSB, baw.
That mission came off almost flawlessly.

The P-38 was awesome after they fixed the design flaw. Before that, though, it was a death machine. Pilots couldn't pull out of steep dives because the center of gravity would shift. They had to out little flaps on the wings to compensate.

I'd prefer the P-61, though. It wasn't quite as fast but had more capacity and with the most advanced radar at the time, was the best of night fighters.

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P-38 was designed as a single-seat day fighter.

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No, it night fought as well. They actually built a variant exclusively for night fighting toward the end of the war, but it was also used as such beforehand.

Germans called them “fork tailed devils” and one of planes they feared the most

Tchefuncte he was. Spent alot of time in Burma and all over South America.