WOW248 P-38 ‘California Cutie’

Description

The P-38 was Lockheed’s first combat airplane, first flown January 27, 1938.  It was designed as a high-altitude interceptor in response to an Army specification issued in 1937.  It was an elegant and exceptionally clean aircraft of radical twin-fuselage (or twin “boom”) design with turbosupercharged engines and Lockheed’s now-standard twin elliptical tails.  P-38s were built at Lockheed’s Burbank plant, except for 113 built by Vultee at a plant in Nashville, Tennessee, that had been set up to produce at least 2,000 planes but had barely gotten started when the war ended and the order was cancelled.

The name “Lightning” was bestowed by the British.  You can tell it wasn’t Lockheed’s idea because it has nothing to do with stars or constellations, but Lockheed and the Army soon adopted it.

Unfortunately, the British Lightnings failed to live up to their name.  The British unwisely ordered a version of the Lightning with the turbos and other important equipment removed.  They were so disappointed with their Lightnings that they returned them to the U.S., where they were used as trainers, and never bought another Lightning.

In U.S. service the Lightning was an important and successful fighter.  It was hardly ever used in its originally intended role as an interceptor, but handled the full range of fighter duties including escort, air superiority, ground attack and radar-equipped night fighting.  It was the only U.S. fighter in production from the first to the last day of the U.S.’s participation in the war; the first Allied fighter to escort bombers from England to Berlin and back; the aircraft in which Americas all-time number 1 and 2 scoring aces, Richard Bong and Thomas McGuire, claimed all of their kills (40 and 38 respectively); and was credited with destroying more Japanese aircraft in the Pacific theatre than any other Army aircraft.

Despite these achievements, the P-38 was not regarded as a great success in Europe and was progressively replaced in the bomber escort role by the P-51 Mustang.

Our 1/32 scale model ‘California Cutie’ is one of a limited edition of 5 models worldwide , also included is the pilot figure USA013.