The P38 Lightning was a WWII aircraft designed and built by Locheed Aircraft Corporation in Burbank, CA.  It had distinctive twin booms and a single, central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament.  The German Luftwaffe called it  the "fork-tailed devil."  It was the only American fighter aircraft in production throughout the Country's involvement in the war.  The few that remain in flying status are now 70 years old.  Recently at a an airshow, I had an opportunity to take some static shots of the plane before it was surrounded by hoards of people and other obstacles affecting good images. 

The twin booms of the aircraft are a unique design feature.  Burt Rutan's' Voyager (remember the non-stop around the world flight) used a variant of this design ... I don't know if it was inspired by the P38.  In the image below, I am standing inside the twin tails shooting forward.

The next image displays a 60 degree angle view from the left rea.  FYI, the planes parked on the ramp in this shot and the one above are F18's used the Navy's Blue Angel flight demonstration team!  The juxtaposition of old and new is interesting and the progress made in  flight during the period of time between the two is pretty amazing.

I really wanted to capture the look and feel of the aircraft as it sat on some airfield during the late '30 and 40's so I converted some of the images to a sepia toned black and white. Here's the nose with the Sun beating down on the central nacelle that contained the cockpit and four cannon sitting in the nose.  Look closely at the top of the canopy! Can you see the mirror mounted at the top ... even and especially fighter pilots need to have a view to the rear to watch for attacking enemy aircraft!

Here's my favorite image taken from behind the vertical stabilizers.  Note the outline of the plane formed by the deep shadows!

And a repeat of the second image but in black and white and with the Blue Angel airplanes removed through the magic of photoshop. For me, these two small changes seem to give the image a very different feel.  I can imagine it sitting ready for action on some field in North Africa or Burma in the Pacific  Theater.  Can you?

Well that's it for the P38 Lightning, a most revered WWII fighter aircraft amongst the cognoscenti.  I hope you enjoyed this brief look back.  I plan at least two more posts of images taken at the airshow.

BTW, did you prefer the color or black and white images?  

Bye for now,

Adam