Thoughts of Midnight (NL38TF, serial 44-53095) is not simply a P-38 Lightning. It is the only flying P-38M night fighter in the world.
The P-38M was a specialized two-seat conversion of the P-38L, developed late in World War II for night interception missions over the Pacific. The nose was modified to carry an AN/APS-4 radar pod under the cockpit, a second cockpit was squeezed in directly behind the pilot for a radar operator, and the entire aircraft was painted matte black for low visibility at night. The radar operator talked the pilot onto targets that no human eye could see in the darkness. It was a completely different mission philosophy from daytime fighter operations — patient, methodical, dependent on instruments and teamwork rather than the instinct and aggression of daylight combat.
Only about 75 P-38Ls were ever converted to the M configuration before the war ended. Japan surrendered before the program was fully operational. Most of the aircraft that had been converted were scrapped along with the rest of the surplus. The matte black paint came off, the radar pods disappeared into storage bins, and the P-38M essentially ceased to exist as an operational type almost as soon as it had been created.
After postwar service in Honduras as FAH503 and FAH506, serial 44-53095 returned to the United States in 1960 and passed through several restorations and identities — Der Gabelschwanz Teufel (The Fork-Tailed Devil, the German nickname for the P-38), Putt Putt Maru — before a 2006 restoration gave it the Thoughts of Midnight name and night fighter configuration it carries today. Owned by Tom Friedkin and Comanche Fighters, it flew in the historic 2007 gathering of six flying P-38 Lightnings at the California Capital Airshow.
There are perhaps ten airworthy P-38s in the world. There is one P-38M. This is it.