@ Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, VA.
August 2018
This P-38 remained Stateside during the war and was used for a variety of flight tests, including one in which WWII ace Richard Bong flew this aircraft. In 1946 the Army Air Forces transferred custody of the Lightning, and more than sixty other World War II-era airplanes, to the Smithsonian National Air Museum. First flown in 1939, more than 10,000 would be produced. The P-38 was the only American fighter in large-scale production throughout American involvement in the war, from Pearl Harbor to Victory over Japan Day. At the end of the war, orders for 1,887 more were cancelled. Fuji X-E2s w/18-55mm.
