P-38s on the flight line at Chino

Five flying P-38s and one F-5G that will fly - the biggest collection of Lightnings in one place in many many years.

For modelers, note the upper surface color of the P-38F "Glacier Girl." That is early US Olive Drab, a green-base color matched to British WW1 P.C.10 and so close to WW2 RAF Dark Green that you can use that color in painting your models. This is the correct upper surface USAAF color through the summer of 1943 (when the factories changed to the brown-base color, just before dropping camouflage paint altogether that fall). This paint was matched for the restoration with the original paint on the recovered airframe, which only had some 15-20 flying hours on it at the time it landed in Greenland in 1942.

For those interested, the P-38 Glacier Girl is a P-38F, the P-38 "23 Skidoo" is a P-38J and the others are all P-38Ls, though they are painted like P-38Gs and early P-38Js. You'll notice the 475th FG is popular with P-38 owners.

20 additional images. Click to enlarge.