Twin-Whirlwind & Catalina…

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Another safe place for a car door is aft of the wing, and this is very traditional out of the cockpit: the Dakota had cabin car-door, and many other ailiners, like the Lockheed P-38AL Lightellation below.

Of course there is no more Lockheed airliners nowadays, but from the Lockheed 10 Electra to the L.1011 Tristar with the Constellation in between, there is a whole family to justify the actual veracity of the P-38AL.  

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I know, I know... the P-38AL was not what passengers expect from an airliner, the cabin was much too narrow. Well, that could be enough for a little cargo plane: P-38LG LightGo, with separate tailplanes leaving free access to trucks. The GD Charger and NA Bronco had such a small rear door - designed by professional engineers, yes... B)

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The TGplane topic was about P-39-like car-doors, "and what about a P-38 with a car door?", so I drew such Lightnings, but coming back to the P-39-like car-door subject, I presented the VTOL-P-39 tail-sitter (Unicraft models 1/72, see at http://www.unicraftmodels.com/ via Available kits/Kit-1 Yuriev). Then I thought: what about a P-38Kit-1 tailsitter?  
Another different Lightning...

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Why was the P-38 cockpit moved ahead on the P-38kit-1? Simple: there must be free room in the wing for the shafts linking propellers (V-22 way: if one engine is in a jam, the other must drive both propellers).
Yes, but small propellers like the genuine-P-38's cannot provide enough lift as rotors... Thus the P-38kit-1 never left the ground, and proposals P-38K-2 (with 2-bladed intermeshing propellers),K-3 and K-4 came. Alas all cancelled 1944, why?

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Seen on the ground:

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On the TGplane forum, I(ve been told the P-38Kit tailsitters would be awfully dangerous for pilots because of a too small base...
The answer is below: with 3 P-38 models, a P-38TandemWingVtol reaching top stability to comfort...

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Most of you know probably that the RP-38 prototype (see http://www.aerofiles.com/lock-RP38.jpg ) demonstrated that a Lightning may be piloted laterally, away from the centerline, so this is another way to have a safe car-door, far from the propellers: see the P-38R below, the pilot's starboard cockpit features such a danger-less car-door... (the observer's port cockpit had a similar door, opposite, and the central pod is for the radar and front landing gear).

The drawing above was inspired by the Bv P.166 (see http://www.geocities.com/asymmetrics/bv166.htm from Unicraft Models' Igor), but Blohm und Voss is also well known for its weird Bv 141, so, What-ifing further...:
From the RP-38 test-bed for lateral piloting of Twin-Mustang: the AP-38 would have been a test-bed for (easier) piloting of US-made Bv 141, without engine-nose in front of the pilot.
Mixing with the Reco-P-38 without central pod, that gives the AP-38-2.
Installing again the genuine P-38 nose, that gives the AP-38-3.
Bringing back the second P-38 engine (a little aft of the starboard one to avoid intermeshing propellers), that gives the AP-38-4.

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I add the GF5F-2 Twin-Skyrock (from the XGF5F Skyrock glider, from the F5F Skyrocket...)

Thanks to Proditor, that presented the Grumman F5F-5 Twincat 3-boom of "1942" at  http://www.whatifmodelers.com/forum//index...?showtopic=7388 , here is a 2-view drawing of the 2-boom derivative Grumtof F5F-6:

Another Twin-Skyrocket, welcome...

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And still from the TGplanes forum: "the subject here was car-doors, than car-door on P-38, then car-door on airliners, so... I drew a P-38 airliner with a very narrow cabin, but a very wide cabin may be proposed instead: reminding the Uppercu-Burnelli Model 14 (see at http://www.aircrash.org/burnelli/images/ub14_v4.jpg ) here is an Uppercu-Purnelli Model 38, UP-38, with lifting body and solid cabin resisting crashes, and... 2 car doors, still lateral while in a different direction"  

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Still on the Tgplanes forum, my UP-38 drawing received these comments: "passengers would need to lie down" and "think of the legroom".
My answer : "You are very right as Reality is concerned, and I must explain: I am a what-if-modeller, used to mix scales smilingly. So: a 1/48 big pilot with 1/72 dwarf passengers is common in my (lightly crazy) Universe... Well, as I fully respect your way also, I present the corrected Scaled-Purnelli SP-38, closer to the UB-14 with its lifting fuselage going below the engines."

If I duplicate it all here, it is mainly for 2 reasons:
- I hope what-ifers may enrich my collection with new ideas too, that may be even better, even more promising...
- I prefer directing to specialized twin-boom addresses my site with updates for "The end of 'Forked Ghosts' ": http://cmeunier.chez-alice.fr/Free_EoFG_MV.htm

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then...
"About more seats with car-doors, our P-38 is still a good basis:
- As a classical car (nor sport nor luxury) had 2 doors per side (not 1 nor 3), the P-38car could be designed just the same, and the trainer TP-38C was born...
- As a link between cars and aircraft were Flying Cars, 4-seaters, that brought to life the Familial FP-38FC... Landing, you pilot discard the wings, air-engines, tail, switch on the nose ground-engine, and here you go on the road, driver..."

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As next model to build, I consider the Me 609 1/72 kit that I have, but... thinking about it, there was no need to wait the 609 to have a bubble-canopy Messerschmitt Zwilling: the Bf109Z, Me409, Me209Z could have all been transformed that way - see below the Bf109ZX, Me209ZX, Me409X...

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British Wyvern Mk1, French Double-Wyvèrne or Australian Twin-Wyvern and... Canadian Twin "38-like" (in Alberta, "à la 38" in Québec).

As explained on another topic, here is another Twin-Wyvern-1 (I include it here to complete the old collection of Twin-Wyverns). This one would be the easier to build as plastic model (Trumpeter basis?), while it would have been the hardest to land safely in scale 1 operation...

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Seeing again the Tri-Turbo DC-3 at http://polar3.home.att.net/northpole-aircraft.html I considered a 3-engined Dakota without turboprop, that may have been designed in 1940: DC-3t, with its twin counterpart, of course: DC-33tt.
And looking for a basis drawing, I realised that I had forgotten to twin the push-pull DC-3pp, so here is the Twin-DC-33pp, sorry... rather belated, for a 1941 design.
 

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While asking information about the Rosatelli CR.55 bifusoliera, someone told me my provisional CR.55 looked a lot like the Real SIAI SM.92...
I answered: "If you are interested by this collection, you may read the bifusoliera History page http://users.belgacom.net/avion2/avion2/5354.html (with BabelFish help if you do not read French) or have a look on my own homepage with much more bifusoliera (Fiat G-58 = double 55, SIAI trimotore, Santangelo Combattimento, etc). But I am not at all a proud Historian expert: your note interested me a lot, as inventing a new way: what if my CR.55 mother and the SM.92 father had a baby, half-breed? SM-920... Thanks!"

PS. If someone here has a picture of the genuine CR.55, that would be much welcome...