Aaa Lightning!
The P38 Lightning was designed to be a long-range fighter. This plane was the 1st fighter with turbochargers and a tricycle undercarriage. It was complex and expensive to produce.
The Lightning was first used in the Pacific theater. Its most famous action occurred there in 1943 when it courageously downed Admiral Yamamoto who was the Japanese commander in chief. In 1944 the P38 was introduced to Europe. There it was used by the tactical air forces for ground attack and photographic reconnaissance.
3 comments:
Hi! The P38 is a neat aircraft. They did suffer from something called compressibility stall. Can you tell me what a compressibility stall is?
A compressibility stall is a sudden lost of lift of a wing because the air going over the wing is going faster than the speed of sound.
That's right. The air piles up in front of the wing surface and then tumbles over the wing trying to get out of the way of the compression wave. This creates turbulence and a loss of lift. This can be extremely severe during the transition from sub mach to super mach speed.
Part of the problem is associated with fluid dynamics. People who study aerodynamics generally refer to air as a fluid because it acts like a fluid when an aircraft is below mach speed. As the aircraft approaches mach speed the air begins to compress in front of the aircraft. This is something a fluid cannot do.
The piled up wave of air in front of a wing can severely disrupt airflow of the elevator, which is down stream from the wing, causing erratic and extreme pitching of the aircraft.
OK, so now we know what it is. How do modern aircraft designers defeat compressibility stall?
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