P-38J "New Glory" skin for Jane's WWII Fighters.

Natural metal finish P-38J-25 skin with non-historical markings.

NOTE: To maximize the "bare aluminum" look, try setting the object detail to the highest level in the game's 3D options.


Thanks to Hammerd for providing the natural-metal P-38 skin offered at http://ww2f.dogfighter.com that serves as the base for this skin design.

Questions or comments pertaining to the "New Glory" skin can be sent to  me at rhydderch@earthlink.net

Anthony L. "Wraith" Johnson

July, 2001


Installation
------------
Before installing this, or any other, custom modification, you are advised to take a backup
your original ww2.sqs archive.  

Extract the contents of this archive to the WWII Fighters\Data directory.  Assuming the
default installation, this is: C:\Program Files\Jane's Combat Simulations\WWII Fighters\Data

The files will be extracted to a new directory WWII Fighters\Data\P38NewGlory

Using Windows Explorer, navigate to the WWII Fighters\Data\P38NewGlory directory.

This distribution includes high-resolution (512x512) textures for users whose video cards
support high-resolution textures
 
WARNING: attempting to install high-resolution textures on a system with a video card which 
does not support them may cause the game to crash.

To install, double-click on the install.bat icon.

This will open up a DOS session and the installation will proceed in this window.  When
the installation is complete, a message saying "DONE...CLOSE DOS SESSION" will be
displayed in the window.  Close the DOS session by clicking on the X close button in the
top right corner of the window.

Installation is now complete.




Notes on "New Glory" skin
--------------------------

The P-38J-25 series introduced the dive recovery flaps to the Lightning. These flaps, located underneath the wings outboard of the engine booms, solved the P-38's fatal flaw of suffering compressibility stalls in high speed dives. Electrically deployed by a control on the yoke, the flaps disrupted the shock wave formed beneath the wing and restored lift and control to the wing in these dives. "New Glory" has these dive flaps mapped into the skin, but there is no 3D model change. The appearance of these flaps are cosmetic, but the effect of dive flaps are modeled in the sim's stock flight models. It should be noted that dive recovery flaps are not exclusive to the J-25 or P-38L series, as they were also retrofitted to earlier P-38 models both at Army depots and on the field.

The P-38J-25 also differed from earlier Lightnings with the landing light. In all previous versions, the landing light was located underneath the left wing. It rotated down when activated, and swung up flush to the wing when not in use. In the J-25, the landing light was embedded into the leading edge of the left wing, needing no mechanical deployment and eliminating the slight aileron nibble that occurred whenever the old light was deployed.

The girl that graces the nose of "New Glory" is a photo of modern-day actress Charisma Carpenter. I found that the flag that adorns her is a 48-star banner, a contemporary of the WWII era.

July 2001 revisions include a new damaged canopy look. I took the damaged glass imagery from the stock WWIIF sqs file and pasted it, with some adjustment, into the canopy area. Instead of a full-penetration hole in the glass, it has a "shattered web" effect instead, which in my my opinion, would be more historically accurate with special attention to the front windshield. This glass panel was bulletproof, after all.

May 2002 revision flips the nose-art text and image around, placing the image out of the line for the gun bay cowling.

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A hasty in-cockpit modification is available in this file as well, replacing the face of the P-38's gyro compass with a black-and-white photgraph neatly pasted on top. There is no 3D model modification, it is simply a bitmap replacement. To install this, click on the cockpit.bat icon, and it will replace the compass face. Feel free to replace the bitmap image to suit your own preference.