The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a twin-engine heavy fighter US long-range action, used during the Second World War by the RAF and the United States (AAC/AAF).
At his appearance, in 1939, was a revolutionary aircraft, extremely innovative, thanks mainly to the fuselage double girder, the two engines with turbochargers Allison V inside the cross tail and the landing gear in tricycle front.
The plane flew at the end of the thirties, and a copy was lost because swoop came to exceed 840 km/h, going in a regime of compressibility high Mach number because of its subtlety; this problem, which entailed the loss of effectiveness of the flight controls, was also found on other aircraft (eg. on the P-47).
In 1939, flew over the United States from coast to coast, in just 7 hours and 2 minutes with only two stops for refueling, a performance which in those days was incredible.
The P-38 was probably the quietest fighter in history, given that the discharges were muffled by the turbo General Electric of the two motors Allison, and forgave many piloting mistakes but its roll rate was too low for him to excel as a fighter dogfights.
Among the various innovations of the Lighting was the fact of being the first interceptor dell’USAAC twin engine and the first with tricycle front, with the first head rivets embedded on the surface of the fuselage, with the teardrop canopy, capable of 400 miles per hour and the first fighter to two fuselages.