XP-82 Twin Mustang Restoration Progress Report

Am I right in remembering a Twin Mustang appeared on the UK civil a/c register? Anybody know the registration by any chance?

Thanks for the input folks.
Interesting indeed.

Andy

Quote
“In March 1940, the French and the British ordered a total of 667 P-38s for US$100M, designated Model 322F for the French and Model 322B for the British. The aircraft would be a variant of the P-38E. The overseas Allies wished for complete commonality of Allison engines with the large numbers of Curtiss P-40 Tomahawks both nations had on order, and thus ordered for the Model 322 twin right-handed engines instead of counter-rotating ones, and without turbo-superchargers. After the fall of France in June 1940, the British took over the entire order and christened the plane “Lightning”. By June 1941, the War Ministry had cause to reconsider their earlier aircraft specifications, based on experience gathered in the Battle of Britain and The Blitz. British displeasure with the Lockheed order came to the fore in July, and on 5 August 1941 they modified the contract such that 143 aircraft would be delivered as previously ordered, to be known as “Lightning (Mark) I”, and 524 would be upgraded to US-standard P-38E specifications, to be called “Lightning II” for British service. Later that summer, an RAF test pilot reported back from Burbank with a poor assessment of the ‘tail flutter’ situation, bringing the British to cancel all but three of the 143 Lightning Is. Because a loss of approximately US$15M was involved, Lockheed reviewed their contracts and decided to hold the British to the original order. Negotiations grew bitter and stalled. Everything changed after December 7, 1941 when the United States government seized some 40 of the Model 322s for West Coast defense, subsequently all British Lightnings were delivered to the USAAF starting in January 1942. The USAAF loaned the RAF three of the aircraft which were delivered by sea in March 1942 and were test flown no earlier than May at Swaythling, Boscombe Down and Farnborough. These three were subsequently returned to the USAAF; one in December 1942 and the others in July 1943. Of the remaining 140 Lightning Is, 19 were not modified and were designated the USAAF as RP-322-I (‘R’ for ‘Restricted’, because non-counter-rotating props were considered more dangerous at takeoff), while 121 were converted to non-turbo-supercharged counter-rotating V-1710F-2 engines and were designated P-322-II. All 121 were used as advanced trainers; a few were still serving that role in 1945. A few RP-322s were later used as test modification platforms such as for smoke-laying canisters. The RP-322 was a fairly fast aircraft under 16,000 ft (4,900 m) and well-behaved as a trainer. Some of the fastest post-war racing P-38s were virtually identical in layout to the P-322-II.”

This truly is a monumental undertaking as far as restorations go. Tom and team are amazing, true craftsmen & women.

Someone smarter than I am will have to explain the prop rotation thing.
I just confirmed my suspicion that the XP-38 was indeed the only P-38 to have the props turn inward at the top.
All others turned outward.
This is just the opposite to the ’82’s.

Any thoughts?

Andy Scott

Note the real advantages of the F-82 vs P-38 for single-engine flight as quoted from retired Colonel John Sharp in the following link. The thread also covers why P-38 production stayed with ‘outward’ propeller rotation, even though it made the pilot’s life more challenging.

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=36361&start=0

No, that one is at the USAF Museum. Both of the ones under restoration came from the Soplata collection

Is one of these Mustangs the subject of a previous ownership dispute?

So I have thought some more about this Inward (F-82) vs outward (P-38) at the top, propeller rotation.
If you look at a line drawing of each, head on, you can see that the height of the wing is markedly different.
The P-38 wing is basically at the same height as the centre of the spinners. F-82 is at about the bottom 1/4 of the prop circle.
Any thoughts?

I find it quite ironic, that each first prototype had props turning in the less desirable direction.

Andy

No recent public information on the other Twin Mustang restoration, owned by C&P Aviation – though that F-82 restoration was already just about as advanced, four years ago, as Tom Reilly’s XP-82 project is now. https://vimeo.com/21704963 In recent years they have also purchased a P-51H project and an O-47 to be restored to fly.

This has been a very interesting restoration to follow , all the more so because of the detailed reporting by Tom . Is there any news of the other Twin Mustang being restored to flight ?

As pogno said, it is explained on their blog. The inward turning props at the bottom caused the central wing to stall and it was barely flyable.

Don’t forget that the P-82 is a twin fuselage with a center wing section. The P-38 is a twin boom with center pilot nacelle. Different configurations with different aerodynamics and stall characteristics.

This truly is a monumental undertaking as far as restorations go. Tom and team are amazing, true craftsmen & women.

Someone smarter than I am will have to explain the prop rotation thing.
I just confirmed my suspicion that the XP-38 was indeed the only P-38 to have the props turn inward at the top.
All others turned outward.
This is just the opposite to the ’82’s.

Any thoughts?

Andy Scott

A very interesting project!

If I have read it right about the propeller rotations, they will rotate inwardly to each other? What stall conditions does this configuration alleviate? How did outwardly rotating propellers work for the P38 but not this? (Or did it work for the P38?)

Cheers.

Kye

Kye
If you page through to the July report you will see it explained about the prop rotation. When it first flew the XP-82 rotation was the same as the P-38 but that didnt work for the XP-82 so it was changed to being the same as the DH Hornet. I wonder if they ever tried the P-38 with the engines swopped over, it might have been better.

Richard

A very interesting project!

If I have read it right about the propeller rotations, they will rotate inwardly to each other? What stall conditions does this configuration alleviate? How did outwardly rotating propellers work for the P38 but not this? (Or did it work for the P38?)

Cheers.

Kye