Two-thirds scale Lockheed P-38 Lightning!
13 September 2024
The late Jim O’Hara and his wife Mitzi began their incredible homebuilding odyssey to create a two-thirds scale P-38 Lightning in Texas in the mid-1990s. Having retired from a long tenure as Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at Tulane University in New Orleans, he decided to learn to fly. Then, because he had loved the Lockheed P-38 Lightning when he was growing up, Jim decided he would build his own replica.
Jim chose two-thirds scale because that was the smallest the aircraft could be made – and still have a cockpit that his wife and he could fit in. After more than 20 years – and tens of thousands of hours of design and construction – the aircraft, powered by two 220hp Continental IO-360s, made its first flight in 2008, and would go on to fly about 120 hours.
When Jim died aged 94 in December 2022, he left the aircraft to his great nephew William Presler, from Lebanon, Tennessee. William, who runs Volar Avionics and Restorations, carefully returned the aircraft to airworthiness, after it had stood inactive for a number of years, including modernising the cockpit with a Garmin glass panel.
William finally fulfilled a 2009 invite that was made by the then EAA President, the late Tom Poberezny, to have the aircraft displayed on Boeing Plaza during AirVenture 2010, allowing the world’s homebuilders to appreciate this masterpiece.
