Lockheed P-38 Lightning

43- I understand you have in your wee fingies drawings of the 38 I also see you are friends with RPY club, have stumbled out of there a number of times
are all your DWGs transferred onto sheet or are they still on reels, I would like to get a phone number later if I may thank you

The difficulty with a traditional 35mm slide/negative scanner is that the drawings extend beyond the normal 35mm frame on the microfilm, so you will lose some of the information if you use one. Even a high quality flat-bed scanner will be problematic, as you will not be able to use any of the film holders that come with them. The only practical way to use a flat bed scanner is to sandwich the film against the scanning surface with another piece of glass (with the edges smoothed of course – you can get these easily from frameless 4×6″ clip picture frames).

Alternatively, you can get a good macro-lens for a high resolution digital SLR and photograph the film against a light table. The set up takes time, as the focal range is very narrow with a macro lens and you need the lens to be completely orthoganal to the film which takes a little jiggling to get done. Things progress quite quickly once you’re ready to go though. It is certainly the fastest technique, as you can photograph an entire roll of 400 or so drawings in a few hours.

Scanning, is sloooooowwwww, on the other hand, with 10 drawings an hour being about all you can realistically achieve. It is a much cheaper option though if you don’t have quality camera gear. A decent scanner for this sort of project will only cost you a couple of hundred pounds these days.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,
Richard

I’ve been using a reader/scanner/printer at my local university. I got a quote to have the microfilm transferred to electronic media, but I could buy a new reader/scanner/printer cheaper than the quote. So I’m purchasing a secondhand Microfilm machine, cheaper than the total cost of the P-38 drawing set. I got some really good advice off a thread on this forum.

What the about the issue of gaining access to a microfilm reader?

Richard is correct, there are three separate sets of drawings that make up the complete P-38 drawings set. Each individual set must be ordered separately, and NASM will only accept one order at a time. Each order takes 3 to 4 months to fill.
I am very happy with my purchase, the drawings are in good condition and extremely helpful. Some of the sets don’t have index, so it can be time consuming finding the drawing you want.

I have also been considering a drawing set (not P-38) from the NASM, but I’m a bit weary of committing to them sight unseen.

Was that price for all available P-38 drawings or just for a particular model?

How legible are the drawings? The quality of the original paper to microfilm transfer in the US seems to have been a mixed bag going by an F6F drawing set that I have seen (maybe 50% readable at best)

http://airandspace.si.edu/research/arch/collections/techdraw/mfilm.cfm

You are correct that some of the drawings were poorly copied, at least this was true on the F4U set. However, the bulk of the drawings should be useable, and there are often duplicate drawings from which you can glean the missing information (from the illegible drawings). It only cost $700 for the complete set of F4U drawings (-1 thru -4) a decade ago, so I imagine that $3500 would cover the whole set of P-38 drawings, rather than a small subset.

However, the archives division at NASM has really only just got back on their feet again after the hiatus of the move from Silver Hill, so I imagine there will still be a substantial backlog of work to catch up with even now. This is just a guess of course, but you should take it into consideration if you are ordering drawings from NASM. They will do their best to help you though, as they really are a terrific group of dedicated people.

Cheers,
Richard

I have also been considering a drawing set (not P-38) from the NASM, but I’m a bit weary of committing to them sight unseen.

Was that price for all available P-38 drawings or just for a particular model?

How legible are the drawings? The quality of the original paper to microfilm transfer in the US seems to have been a mixed bag going by an F6F drawing set that I have seen (maybe 50% readable at best)

http://airandspace.si.edu/research/arch/collections/techdraw/mfilm.cfm

p-38

I am look for a complete set of drawings
thanks, n45316

Mark V, yes, all on 35mm microfilm. Going through the long drawn out process of converting them to electronic now. Will definitely make them easier to access.
ZRX61, Lockheed seems to have had a much better publications department than Curtiss or Bell. I’ve collected quite a library of company publications that I have never seen for the P-40 or P-39. For example, each work station on the assembly line had a task manual of what had to be done, and the distance forward the assembly travelled in the time available to complete that task. Also different wiring schematics for “E” models depending on construction number,etc….. Also picked up what appears to be a complete set of hand written notes along with 8 by 10 glossies for the Texas modification centre(all J models and later).

Interesting stuff.

Years ago I found a stack of originals in a shed in Burbank, can’t remember where they ended up 🙁

43-2195 – Your set of drawings are on microfilm reels I presume? Thanks.

I have a complete set of Lockheed P-38 technical drawings acquired from the National Air and Space Museum for a little over USD$3,500. I suggest you google them, print out the request forms and post them in. I am looking for P-38 parts if you are interested in trading.

Before you call you might want to clearify your exact needs.
By “blueprints” do you meam 3- view plan drawings…or a complete set of drawings…probably numbering in the thousands.

Westpac

Westpac restorations might be a good place to start – have done a number of P-38 restorations and have got quite a few good photos on their site.

http://www.westpacrestorations.com