A Super Lightning?

[pampa14]

During World War II, the Lockheed developed a long-range version of its famous fighter P-38 Lightning, however, due to technical problems the project was canceled. The link below provides a collection of interesting photos of the plane and a question: If the plane had entered service, have reached the success of the P-38? What do you think? Visit the link, see the photos and answer this question through a poll at the end of the post.


http://aviacaoemfloripa.blogspot.com.br/2011/03/lockheed-xp-58-chain-lightning.html


Best Regards.

 

[George]

Looks similar to the P-61 that was used as a night fighter, would assume it would be classed as a heavy fighter and those didn't do well as a class. In '43-'44 the 5th Air Force put out a requirement for a new twin engine fighter with specific minimum increases in range and other performance increases and must be able to fly on one engine. It resulted in the Twin Mustang.

 

[MontyB]

Certainly looks like they bolted a P-61 fusilage in to a P-38 frame although the nose is a lot shorer than the P-61.

At a guess I would suspect it was a hybrid of the two.