Very special P-38 Lightnings (pirate and related)

[Tophe]

As a (naive or/and stupid) pacifist, I will not build nor draw a true (or what-if) airplane with guns to kill (or threaten to kill) for money, no. Just weaponless smugglers or jokes.
First, the backstory is this: the Walt Disney studio required a cartoon with gentle airplanes (smiling) and nasty airplanes (angry or looking like pirates). No attack nor violence (that would forbid the film for children), just showing the piracy symbol will demonstrate the bad side.

This project was alas refused by the Disney studios, not because lack of piracy but because P-38 means USA and the bad side for them must be foreign!

[Tophe]

The Tophe design bureau tried to sell this design (above, with possible modifications) to other unconventional (high-paying) users (not military nor legal civilians): European smugglers that cannot use a visible runway so need a VTOL for secret moves from the forest in the mountains near Switzerland. But unexpectedly a French official inspection occurred and at the question "what is the meaning of SMU-38?", the immediate answer (in catastrophic urgency) was that SMU-R is Service Médical d'Urgence Régionale (Regional Urgency Medical Service). for ambulances (and air ambulances landing vertically on the roof of hospitals). So this proposal was sent to the (surprised) hospital, that refused it because no budget for such a tool, but the design bureau was not punished/closed for smuggling complicity. (Sigh of relief, as punishment is a kind of violence)...

[NARSES2]

So a Flying Pancake (appropriate for Shrove Tuesday) Lightning 

[Tophe]

So a Flying Pancake (appropriate for Shrove Tuesday) Lightning 

Yes, thanks, you are absolutely right: there were flying pancakes in this family without cross bones/booms.
This was also for Smugglers but with a smile painted on the back to fool inspectors;

Bacolod City, Philippines (Negros Island, Negros Occidental area) is the birth town of my son. It is famous as the City of Smile, both for the gentleness of its inhabitants and for a killing pandemy a long time ago, the nurses wearing a smiling mask to hide their sadness...

[Tophe]

The Smg-38 being seriously considered for mass-production (8 to 13 copies), it was found cheaper to build them from converting old P-38s:

[Tophe]

Transferring the pancake parts from the Smg-38 to the Smg-38A left the Smg-38 prototype all naked... (to be destroyed, no museum being interested):

[nighthunter]

Tophe,

Disney did do Sky Pirates in Tailspin, Don Carnage and his gang, never took lives, and most couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with their weapons, but no one ever got hurt. And they were comedic relief.

[Tophe]

Thanks I did not know.
With Google and your words, I found the related aircraft, called The Iron Vulture:
https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Iron_Vulture?file=Ironvulture01.jpg
Thanks again!

[Robomog]

Nice work Tophe, beautifully off the wall 

Mog
>^-.-^<

[Flyer]

Thanks I did not know.
With Google and your words, I found the related aircraft, called The Iron Vulture:
https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Iron_Vulture?file=Ironvulture01.jpg
Thanks again!

They used some cool looking (IMO anyhow) triplanes on floats also. If interested search for: Don Karnage CT-37

[Tophe]

Yes, thanks: I found these weird pirate floatplanes at https://www.animationsource.org/tssourcepage/aircraft3.htm

[Tophe]

Here is the CT-38 Triplane, twin-boom follower of the CT-37 Triplane:

[Tophe]

While the leader had a triplane, the other pilots had a biplane:

[Tophe]

And the son of the leader, as a student, just got a monoplane, poor boy...

[Flyer]

Cool!

P-38 looks surprisingly good as a triplane.