List of surviving Lockheed P-38 Lightnings

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was an American twin‑engine fighter used in World War II by the US Army Air Forces and Allied air forces. Of 10,037 built, 26 survive today, with 22 in the United States and 10 of the survivors being airworthy. By the end of 1945, 9,923 had been delivered. The aircraft was declared obsolete in 1946 and the last USAF flight was in 1948. It was a very complex plane to maintain, and crashes happened. Many surviving aircraft have been rebuilt several times.

Many late P‑38s were converted to F‑5 photo reconnaissance planes and used by photo‑mapping companies through the 1960s. The latest military use came with a few South American air forces, especially Honduras, which operated the Lightning until the early 1960s. Some P‑38s were bought after the war for civilian air racing. Through the early 1980s, most of the remaining P‑38s came from these postwar sources. In 1948 Korea tried to buy about 100 brand‑new P‑38Ls stored in the Philippines, but the USAF persuaded them to take other aircraft instead, and the new P‑38s were destroyed.

Today, collectors search the world for forgotten warbirds, and wrecks are recovered from places like New Guinea, Alaska, and Greenland to be restored for display or flight.