P-38-X Blitz-Light

[zenrat]

Could the fact that the Allisons extra width over the DB 605s makes this conversion tricky be the universe telling you to do it with DB 606s?


You'd need bigger fire extinguishers.

[buzzbomb]

Very interesting take on the P-38

[Wardukw]

Tophe mate its bloody mental is what it is..i know Tamiya are pretty top notch but still 141 bucks for something i only need half of it is not on the cards..ever.

[Scotaidh]

I build aircraft almost exclusively in 1/72.  !/144 is too small for me to make out any detail at all, really, and the larger scales, whilst very cool in their own right, take up too much display space.  Despite all that, I have a 1/48 Bucc and the TSR2, and a Beaufighter & Harrier GR Mk III in 1/32 ...

Dukw, I have some aftermarket canopies I'm contemplating, but I received today three P-38s, one of which had a spare canopy, so if all else fails I've got that as a fall-back.    I always wondered why no-one ever put a slide-back canopy on a P-38, or ever just a simple sideways hinged unit ala Bf-109 ...

As for the DB606 - because I'd never heard of it, I did a little research, and found this quote:

<Daimler-Benz DB 606: " ... at altitude the oil tended to foam, partly as a result of the return pump being too large, and in this condition it circulated in the engines, its lubricative qualities reduced to nil. The lack of adequate lubrication resulted in disintegration of the connecting rod bearings which burst through the engine crankcase, puncturing the oil tanks which poured their contents on the red hot exhaust pipe collector ... "

William Green. Warplanes of the Third Reich (see page 339).>

No, thanks - I'll stick with the 605, although the same article had these daunting words:

<Daimler-Benz DB 605: " ... Low oil pressure plagued the DB 605 engine throughout its operational career. Daimler-Benz maintained that the horseshoe oil tank was at fault while the Messerschmitt people claimed that the hydraulic supercharger trapped air bubbles in the oil. Eventually the DB people developed and installed a de-aerator but when no improvement was found the de-aerator was discarded. The oil pressure problem was never satisfactorily solved ... "

John Beaman, Messerscmitt Bf 109 in Action, Part 2 (see page 17).


Daimler-Benz DB 605: "... I should point out the enormous problems caused by the unreliability of our supercharged Daimler-Benz 605 AS engines. They would barely make it beyond the fateful 50 hour mark. We were astonished to read in 'Interavia' that the Russians had complained to the Americans that the engines that had been supplied had a life of only 300 hours instead of the 350 hours promised! In my Staffel, it was frequently the case that engines would have to be changed two or three times before finding one which ran satisfactorily ..."
- Karl Mitterdorfer, JG 300>

[Wardukw]

DAMN!!!!  Well thats kind of shock when ya think about it..we've know for decades how good German engineering is and then you read that makes ya think twice.
One thing is did notice is that DB had issues with the 605 and later when Benz became Mercedes Benz for quite some time their cars where extremely unreliable..soooo ive come to the conclusion that its the Benz part which is thr problem 
The 606??? thats just bad ..very very bad and the dude who designed it had many bad days im thinking .
A 48th Bucc is a big plane but im jealous as hell about the Beaufighter  and the TSR1 is a wicked bit of kit..beautiful plane .
I had a 32nd Beau which went up in smoke with my other 32nd birds and i had quite a few ..still makes me sad when i think about it ...oh well such is life .
Ya know Scot we're the opposite on the scale side..72nd is to small for me ..i think its cause i work so much in 35th and 32nd so close but agreed..space is a pain and hell even 48th can be very annoying..a SU 27 in 48th is massive..ive never had a Harrier in any scale which is strange cause i like them..the GR5 i think its is i like the most..the longer wing make the plane look more balanced.

[Rick Lowe]

Yeah, I still think the early Harriers are very lacking in the wing area department!
Even the later ones look a little small.

It's probably some Designer Thing with the P-38 canopy, though a lot of the aircraft of about that era and country had small folding hatches for their canopies... Mustang, Airacobra (well, not so much, but not a slider!).
The Hawk family and T-bolt bucked the trend, but there are always exceptions.

As for sideways-opening, I can't think of many, or any, WW2 US aircraft that had them... or many British, for that matter.
(Though now someone will chime in and correct me, I'm sure!  All good, I'm here to learn. )

Ah well, we can always address that deficiency in Whiff-World! 
And posing it open to the side hides the fact you couldn't find a moveable part that completely matched the windscreen part!  (I know this now...) 

[Wardukw]

Thats the wonderful thing about living in wiffy world..we dont have to follow the rules 
Scots P38 can have any type of canopy he wants ..hell it can have barn doors..gull wing..sliding. folding roof hatch opening style or side ways opening like on the ME 109..oh that gives me an idea..since this is a captured bird it might have been captured with a smashed canopy and the Germans jerry ( no pun there  ) rigged up a new one for it ..my only thing about using a 109 one is its squareish in shape and a P38s aint and it doesn't have a back to it ..ohhhh a 190 might work but hell it would be ugly .
Scot will come up with something cool thats for sure 

[Rick Lowe]

and the Germans jerry ( no pun there  ) rigged

'Humour' is where you find it - call it 'found art'. 

At least if it was unintentional, you may be able to avoid Chris' Grim Stare and getting your name in 'THE BOOK'. 

[Scotaidh]

I bought the Beau because a family friend flew one in the Med during WWII - somewhere I have the book he wrote about his service experiences.  I got started, and then overwhelmed, and haven't touched for years, other than to move it from place to place as I moved (seemed to be a yearly event for a while  :p).

There's a 1/32 Hunter kit I've seen several stores ... I'd love to have it, but again - displaying it would be a serious problem.

[Tophe]

Scots P38 can have any type of canopy he wants ..hell it can have barn doors..gull wing..sliding. folding roof hatch opening style or side ways opening like on the ME 109..oh that gives me an idea..since this is a captured bird it might have been captured with a smashed canopy and the Germans jerry ( no pun there  ) rigged up a new one for it ..my only thing about using a 109 one is its squareish in shape and a P38s aint and it doesn't have a back to it ..ohhhh a 190 might work but hell it would be ugly .

Many wonderful ideas in these lines...
I may draw them before someone will make such models (or not)
But I have to read it twice again to understand witout too much misunderstanding

[Wardukw]

Rick my mum is German and my dad is from Sicily..hell of a mix huh ?
In Ww2 i had family fighting on both sides which can get bloody confusing  but the strange thing is most were involved with engineering of some sort..could be where i get it from.
Scot thats very cool mate..ive got a huge love for twin engined WW2 aircraft and of course the Beau is in the list but having a family friend who flew em and wrote a book is brilliant..its like the coolest thing is to duplicate his plane..if possible.
Hell the Destroyer was going to be twin engined and theres a pretty good chance its going to be..once i get a design in my noggin.
32nd scale Hunter?? .ive stood beside a real one..twin seat verison..its not small really and yeah thats a pretty decent size kit mate and the space issue ..the same problem ive got here.

[Rick Lowe]

Rick my mum is German and my dad is from Sicily..hell of a mix huh ?

So if they were a part of 'the Family', it really would be Organized?! 

having a family friend who flew em and wrote a book is brilliant..its like the coolest thing is to duplicate his plane..if possible.

Yeah - I have a Cousin's memoirs of his time in 490, flying Cats and Sunderlands out in West Africa.
I keep meaning to model 'his' Sunderland, but the kit has been languishing on the 'some time when I have time and space' list for decades now...

[Wardukw]

Oh you can bet we're organized Rick 
My mum ..now retired..ran a school for 18yrs and my dad was an master engineer and he made very expensive and very technical tools..some he made to this day I've got no idea what they were for 
Oh the devil of space..a cat or sunderland in even 72nd scale are not small and I'd love either of those in 48th  😁 and id make space for em.
I know that some of mums family did fight in WW2 and she wont say much about them so i suspect they might have been SS which my family both mums and dads do not like at all and im no fan of them either.
Thats also why ive never made a model with SS markings.

[Rick Lowe]

On the subject of space, that's why I am limiting myself to nothing bigger than twins, with the sole exception of the proposed Sunderland.
I will still overflow the available space with singles, but at least they are easier to shuffle around!

ive never made a model with SS markings.

Yeah, I agree with that.

Maybe some of the folk on this forum could help identify your Dad's tools?

[Wardukw]

You wouldn't believe how many times ive had to do the model shuffle too.
Get new tank and my first thought is where this going to go ..now im whiffing again im taking a model ive already got and making that into something else..like im doing with my BTR-70..its not a BTR 70 anymore   
As for my dad's tools well couple of issues there Rick mate..one ..there's no pics 
and two most were made for very pacific types of work..like aerospace engineering and the like..hell i do remember that his dial calipers cost him $275 NZ each and that was 30 plus yrs ago.