v171089

My father knew someone who was aircrew on the XB-38. The story he told me was that the AAF provided the B-17 to Lockheed as a test bed for installing Allison V-1710 engines on the B-17. The hope was that the Allison engines would give the B-17 better high altitude performance than the Wright R-1820 engines. The V-1710 engines were the same as those used on the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. During a test flight the crankshaft in one of the engines seized and the engine caught fire. The crew abandoned the aircraft. The crew was made up of a mixture of Lockheed employees and AAF crewmen. The AAF crew was equipped with new nylon parachutes whereas the Lockheed crew had older silk parachutes. The silk parachutes all failed on opening and the entire Lockheed crew died. The AAF crew survived. The program was never continued because it was decided the V-1710 engines were more badly needed on P-38 Lightnings.

P-38J serial 42-67804 assigned to the 80th Fighter Squadron "Headhunters," 8th FG,

The XB-38 (converted B-17E) flew in 1943-- crashed after an engine fire less than a month later.