Twin-Whirlwind & Catalina…

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Still for the car-doors topic of TGPlanes:
"In September 1945, P-38s would not have been warbirds anymore but needed to be pleasant fast aircraft for rich civilians... Thus a car door providing a very easy access would have been a very good point for sells, but... the propellers should be very distant not to threaten the customer, and that could have given a P-38St with long shafts to rear pusher propellers – perfectly safe, as there is no need to bail out ever for peaceful civilians..."

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October 1945 brought the cheaper P-38S-2: shorter shafts, standard P-38 tail... with the safe and pleasant car-door feature, still.
Alas, the sells remained zero... Maybe the reason is that my dream is dated 2005...

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Master-Ing. John Howling Mouse, in the F-5U topic ( http://www.whatifmodelers.com/forum//index...pic=4629&st=200 ) mentioned a P-38-like Corsair named Tworsair...
And as the Vought Corsair has been followed by the Vought Corsair-II (not Twin-Corsair but single-engined), the What-if Tworsair is followed by the single-engined Tworsair-II (Two-rsair-Two, funny name that perfectly suits the layout)...

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(from the Jona 10 patent of 1935: the prototype that would have flown in 1937, before the Do 335, and then with the mass-produced parts: the twin Jona 1010 that would have been considered in 1939, before the Do 635...)

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Glenn's topic about a V/STOL E-2 Hawkeye reminded me the strange tail of this bird: quadruple, not less. If the youngest among you ask "where does this feature come from?" I would answer: E-38 Hawk-ning, of 1944. I am a reliable witness: I was there, aged "minus 20"...

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Trying to design the best P-38 for Bailing out... P-38Bo (and "Bo" is pronounced as "Beau"="Beautiful" in my French language...).
Well:
- no central tailplane
- a low central wing (while the external wings remain in a mid position), to walk on, going out of the cockpit... the car-door (hydraulically opened) protecting from the airflow...

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Dialog on the TGPlanes page:
From the view above, DoBravery suggested to propel the cabin away from the booms, small fins emerging and a small rocket being ignited, to belly down safely. While Wuzak suggested a rear door for emergency bailing out. So I drew the P-38DB, and the P-38W with still another car-door direction, facing rear...

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Then Trexx suggested to fly the rocket capsule only, without the excess airplane, while on the contrary Wuzak suggested to discard the rocket and use parachutes. I suggested to be more challenging and weird having the winged capsule as a parasite fighter, going back to the wings after a rush at high speed: the wings and piston engines of the P-38DB mothership would bring range while the actual fighter would be a piloted rocket. The enclosed drawing was P-38D-1 + D-2 as a compound, respecting better the fins requirement of DoBravery (making a twin-boom of the rocket part too!) and with a more free central part, better adapted to the capsule removal (or coming back)...

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Wuzak then asked for a stronger connection between booms and a pilot for the mother-ship. So I drew the P-38W-1+2...

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...and with better weight balance: P-38W-3

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- Then Andyo2000 told me I could replace the central removable pod of the P-38W-3 by a large bomb. I am naively unable to draw killing tools, but it could be replaced by a rescue parcel to drop on victims needing help from the sky.
- But I thought this droppable pod should be in a very different position, below a high central-wing, and there would be a low margin to avoid propellers.
- Well, instead of a high central wing with a pod below, it was possible to have a normal P-38 mid-wing, central, with a low central pod. That would be also better for Wuzak's droppable cockpit with parachutes. And it is even far better for a genuine car-door, to enter the cockpit without ladder, just as in a car... P-38A-2000. The lateral landing gears had to be long for the ground clearance of propellers, but the central pod could be low, I felt stupid not to have thought of it before!
- And following more the droppable central pod with a lateral cockpit, I drew the P-38A-2001, but this was far away from the car-door subject.

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Next:
"Having a safe P-38 car-door far away from propellers was possible in still another direction: see the P-38Sf below. The ground crew may start the engines long before the pilot comes and enters the cockpit. Useful for long warm-up in Iceland or Alaska deep cold..."

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Further:
"The tilting-engines P-38V was not coded V-38 as 1945 was so long before the XV-1/XV-15/V-22...
(ejector seat: mandatory, no baling out)"

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Then:
"Still feeling uncomfortable about P-38's car door and safety with lateral propellers, engineers (of my dreams) found another way: Push-pull-38...
(it could have been called C-338, after the Cessna 337/336/327, with counter-clockwise clock and years running backwards...)"

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And thanks to Gary, desperately looking for a XP-67 Bat model (in another topic), I post here again the (Photopaint improved) picture of the YP-67T Twin-Bat...