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Hi Dave;
My info was just from the local story, however
this morning I did a little more research and found that in fact it would
have been an Allison engine. There was a model 322 which was built for Britain
but the US army refused to supply them with the turbocharger necessary for it's
high altitude performance, so the Brits were going to convert them to the RR
Merlin but it apparently never happened and there was only a total of 3 model
322 ever built. So it appears you would be correct and that it would be an
Allison engine under that mud. Still pretty darn cool.
Another detail is that there were 2 people
killed in the crash, the pilot and a 12 year old boy that he was taking for a
ride. But the P-38 was a single place fighter in it's original configuration,
however it appears that a great many of these were converted to an F-5 model for
reconnaissance duties. It seems that some versions of these were 2 place, so
this must have been the case. Since the plane was being used for aerial
photography in this area, I'd guess that this is likely an F-5 model. The other
possibility is that the local story isn't correct and that it isn't even a P-38,
however I've heard it often enough from old-timers that I think this unlikely,
but I'd like to get some further confirmation of
this.
Todd
Hi Todd,
I am surprised, I thought all P38s had Allison V 12s. Were Canadian P38s
built in Canada fitted with RR Merlins? Congrats, Dave McC
On 26/07/2005, at 4:06 PM, Todd Bartrim wrote:
This would have been a Rolls Royce Merlin V-12,
so while restoration to operational status is beyond question it would be
interesting to excavate it and clean it up for display simply to preserve a
unique piece of local aviation history.
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