Magnificent obsession

“He estimated it would take him 25 years to build his P–38—and if he was really lucky, he’d get to fly it someday,” said William Presler, O’Hara’s grandnephew. “He started building it in his mid-60s, and he flew it for the first time in 2008. This airplane was his big, beautiful dream, and he made it come true.”

N38PJ isn’t a kit. And no plans or blueprints existed when O’Hara started building it in a two-car garage at his home in San Angelo, Texas. But O’Hara sketched out his own plans, made countless calculations, and he told friends that he’d keep working until he came to an insurmountable problem—yet none of the myriad obstacles he encountered were ever quite that large.

The original Tigre engines he planned to use turned out to be problematic, so O’Hara replaced them with counter-rotating Continental TSIO-360s from a Piper Seneca II that produce up to 220 horsepower each. The landing gear came from a Cessna 310, and the hydraulic system from a Bellanca.

The vast majority of the metal parts were individually designed, then fabricated by hand. The nose section, for example, was pounded out on an English wheel, and other parts were made around wooden molds.

Unlike full-sized P–38s, which contained only one seat for the pilot, O’Hara’s has two. The diminutive back seat was for Mitzi, or “Mitzi the Riveter,” his wife and flying companion.

When word of the scale P–38’s existence began to spread in 2009, then-EAA President Paul Poberezny sent O’Hara a letter inviting him to fly the one-of-a-kind airplane to EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and show it off at the world’s largest aviation event.

“You’ve created a significant ‘buzz’ within the EAA community and general aviation community,” Poberezny wrote. “We should like to make the P–38 a centerpiece of our display.”

But O’Hara didn’t do that. He and Mitzi flew locally, and they took the airplane on several long trips to visit family in the Southeast. But they never brought it to AirVenture.

“He just knew aerodynamics so well. He had studied and deeply understood every aspect of this airplane,” William Presler said of his uncle, James O’Hara.

Grandnephew Presler became a private pilot largely because of the encouragement he received from O’Hara, and Presler later opened his own flight school and avionics firm near Nashville, Tennessee. While visiting O’Hara in 2008, Presler remembers being bowled over by the P–38 project, and he offered to buy it if O’Hara, then 79 years old, ever decided to sell.

“When I die,” O’Hara told him, “you’ll have first right of refusal to buy the P–38.”

The two never discussed the matter again. Fourteen years later, however, when O’Hara passed away in 2022 at age 94, Presler thought his granduncle had likely forgotten his one-time expression of interest in owning the P–38. But in his will, O’Hara specified that the airplane would be sold to Presler for $50,000. That was roughly the value of its engines, props, and instruments.

Presler went to San Angelo with a team of technicians and friends to return the P–38 to flying status. It hadn’t flown in five years and needed a great deal of work. The electrical, hydraulic, and fuel systems all needed attention, and many engine oil lines and cables were replaced during three intensive weeks of detailed work.

Also, O’Hara was a small guy, and the rudder pedals had to be moved for Presler—or just about anyone else—to sit in the front seat and operate the rudders and brakes.

“Uncle Jim and Aunt Mitzi were pretty short—and the airplane was built to fit them,” Presler said. “I’m not a big guy, but the pedals definitely had to be moved forward for me to fit.”

Presler had no doubts about the airframe itself. Its structural integrity was the result of O’Hara’s careful calculations, high-quality materials, and impeccable craftsmanship. He also expected the airplane’s flying characteristics to be similar to those of a full-sized P–38 because that’s what his uncle had intended, and that’s what O’Hara thought he’d achieved.

“He just knew aerodynamics so well,” Presler said of his uncle. “He had studied and deeply understood every aspect of this airplane.”

On Presler’s first flight in the “TTP–38” (TT stands for two-thirds) at San Angelo, he said he “never felt so focused or so alive as in that moment.”

The airplane performed as expected with “smooth, forgiving” flying characteristics during normal flight with both engines operating.

Presler describes his three-leg trip from the airplane’s current home in central Tennessee to Oshkosh as “terrifying.” The weather was perfect, and the airplane performed normally—but the thought of flying into what becomes the world’s busiest airport during airshow week, and his own high expectations, brought a great deal of pressure.

The airplane, with a roughly 2,500-pound empty weight and 3,167-pound gross weight, holds 80 gallons of fuel and cruises at about 160 knots at the low power settings that Presler chose. It’s IFR equipped with four Garmin GI-275 attitude instruments and engine monitors as well as a Garmin GPS navigator, but Presler only intends to fly it in visual conditions.

Presler said he was overwhelmed by the public response to his uncle’s obsession.

The airplane drew crowds of knowledgeable onlookers who appreciated the pride, perseverance, and skill required to make such an extraordinary aircraft. And Burt Rutan, the legendary aircraft designer, stopped by to tell Presler that O’Hara’s masterpiece, in his opinion, was the single “most important” airplane at the massive event.

“For me, the dust is still settling,” Presler said. “I’m still just trying to make sense of it all. But I’m very gratified that, after all this time, my Uncle Jim’s accomplishment is being widely recognized and appreciated for what it is.”

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