With the skin mirroring fixed of-course! ;)

Absolutely need early models for proper New Guinea scenarios. The introduction of the Ki-61 caused a near panic situation and and had General Kenney burning up the telex wires begging for more modern aircraft.

I approve totally this idea for the first variants of P-38's.

Not only for PTO, it will be a good addition for MTO and ETO too.

More Realism In p-38 Flight Model?
 

The p-38 was one of the most interesting fighters of the Second World War. It offered very good performance and possibly even greater potential that was never realized because of production choices made by factory and material planners. From what I have read, p-38's were relatively hard to fly as fighters because there was 2 of everything and the turbosupercharging created all sorts of problems with the Allisons that were never fully solved, especially in the earlier series; resulting in many blown engines. I have read that the cockpits did not have adequate heating at altitude which created further problems. And if you lost an engine while low and slow, you could die. And how difficult an aircraft is to fly definitely has a direct bearing in real world combat situations where split second decisions can result in either life or death; I think that the IL-2 simulator could be improved in that department although, of course, there would be many complaints by aficionados about how their favorite mount was "ruined". I do not know if this is already the case but perhaps some select online servers could require complex engine management CEM in order to participate as an advanced or expert player for those interested in achieving greater realism?

Fighting against slower Japanese aircraft at low altitude was one thing but tangling with the faster German fighters in the stratosphere proved to be quite another. That is partly why General Doolittle withdrew the p-38 from 8th Air force escort service even though he called it "the sweetest flying plane in the sky".

I would like to see the p-38 model in game somehow reflect even more of this fascinating complexity in terms of its strengths and also its technical and ergonomic limitations. Could DT model an engine blown due to detonation? That would be a new and interesting feature!

They likely can... I think the bigger issue with that is that the P-38 wasn't the only temperamental aircraft in the lineup. If one aircraft's reliability quirks are modelled than the whole lineup should get the same treatment. Not a small job by any means and somewhat more subjective and difficult to get right than the massive work done to add specific G load tolerances per plane for example.

I'd love to see an upgrade to the campaign system and the integration of NTRK cutscenes. Right now campaign NTRK's are played back in Excellent mode instead of Perfect and to my knowledge there is no way to change that. Also you have to use the sepia/film reel filter as there is no option to turn that on or off.

Not sure what's involved but it might be nice to implement the sepia/film filter in Perfect mode and then make that a toggle option for campaign cutscenes.

It Would Keep Me Interested And Coming Back
 

Good point IceFire! Now I do not know what the life expectancy of IL-2 1946 is given that a whole new generation of games like ClOD and BOM is being developed. But modeling aircraft so that they show more of their true "personalities" is exactly the sort of thing that stimulates me as an aviation historian and would keep me coming back to play again and again with renewed interest in whatever time we have left with this platform. I do not know how long the process of upgrading aircraft flight models to include more of their fundamental personality quirks would take, it is certainly a much bigger job than I initially assumed; however, getting closer to the technical reality of flying these beautiful but deadly mechanical beasts fascinates me. Selfish perhaps, but I am as entitled to my preferences as anyone else, right?

Learning about the frightful problems encountered with Hawker Typhoons, p-38's and b-29's makes the accomplishments of the men and women who built, flew, maintained and modified them to win battles seem that much greater to me. The b-29, rushed into production with little time to mature, for example had many, many problems including engines that tended to burn with alarming frequency. However, it is also perhaps the greatest plane of the war, faults and all, because it was used to successfully accomplish what no other could do - it ended things.

Definitely! I love those little details... like Yak wings peeling off due to unauthorized paint use is another "favourite" of mine. And the Typhoons chronic tail shedding issues were definitely another big problem that never was fully solved.

Some of these are probably more difficult to implement than others and sometimes so rare or specific to one circumstance that it's difficult to really do a full tally. Still cool to think about anyways.

Please please PLEASE get rid of the stupidity where the players aircraft weathercocks into the wind whilst sitting stationary on the ground with the engine running.

Are you sure that isn't just torque from the engine?