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Comment by Jan Carter on June 12, 2014 at 17:30

Extremely on target!  What great and interesting information

Featured Comment by Charles Sample on June 12, 2014 at 17:29

Does everybody know where the term, "The whole nine yards" came from?  The ammo belts on those WWII fighters were 27 feet long.  So if you emptied your guns at an enemy plane, you gave him the whole nine yards!

Featured Comment by Charles Sample on June 12, 2014 at 17:26

No, right on target Tobias!  And thank you for the info.

Comment by Howard P Reynolds on June 12, 2014 at 17:14

What a fellow or gal can learn here on iKC!

Comment by Tobias Gibson on June 12, 2014 at 16:46

Actually the larger on is known as the P-51. I have no idea why the P-38 got the name P-38 but I'm almost certain the the P-51 is named after the P-51 Mustang.

If you recall the P-38 was a famous fighter aircraft from WWII.  It was armed with four 50 caliber machine guns and 1 20mm cannon.

I've heard one story that claims airmen called the P-38  a Can-opener because the way it would cut a Japanese airplane in half.  And when GIs started getting the Can-opener in K-Rations they called it a P-38 because it made quick work of the Cans in the rations.  There are about a half dozen other stories about how the P-38 got its name but no one really know the real answer.  That said, I'm about 99.9% sure the P-51 was called the P--51 because the P-38 was called the P-38.

And the other thing I'm sure of if that the reason these planes were designated with a "P" instead of an "F" is because they were "Pursuit" Aircraft.  This was the Term used by U.S. Army Air Corps for Fighter aircraft.  When the U.S Air Force bacame its own military Branch, they dropped the "P" for Pursuit and switched to F for Fighter.  Thus the Mustangs that fought in the Korean War were F-51s.

The other major still in use today:

A= Attack (ground attack planes such as the A-10 Warthog

B =  Bomber (bombers)C = Cargo

F = Fighter

E = Electronic Warfare 

(E is usually in conjunction with another letter (EA, EF, EC)

O = Observation

Q = Unmanned but is used in combination with another letter

RQ = Unmanned recon

MQ = Multi-role Unmanned (meaning it can look for and Kill!)

And Now I've gone way off topic!

In Memoriam Comment by Robert Burris on June 12, 2014 at 16:04

I think the larger P-38 is a P-58. It does work better.

Comment by Howard P Reynolds on June 12, 2014 at 13:18

Hahahahaha.  P-38 wins!  Have you ever tried the "civilian" P-38 knockoffs?  They are a longer version.  Seems like you could get some mechanical (leverage) advantage, but I never owned one.

Comment by Tobias Gibson on June 12, 2014 at 13:02

Howard, I will see what I can do with the Can openers as I have all of them on some variety of knife.  I can tell you the easiest to use is indeed the safety can-opener (the one found on most modern camp knives.  The runner up would be the modern can opener on the Victorinox Swiss Army Knives.

I think about the only can opener I'm lacking is the strange one found on early Wenger Swiss Army Knives.

I will tell you this much they all become easier to use with practice but none of them are as good as a P-38.

Also, some of the early can openers are down-right dangerous if you don't know how to use them but if you do know how they can actually be quite versatile.

Comment by Howard P Reynolds on June 12, 2014 at 12:40

Great information on the history of the Camp Knife, Tobias.  You showed a variety of can openers, the old original SAK can opener (same as the Remington Camp Knife/Scout knife, the half moon, the "modern" long hook, as pictured on the first knife, and the old style Rough Rider punch-type.  The only one missing, that I can think of, is the new or modern SAK can opener with a foreshortened "hook" or blade.  I would love to know which of the different types of can openers work the best.  In reality, maybe none of them work well - as well as a dedicated can opener (e.g. Swing-A-Way) or P-38, but if you could test them out and show us a video, I think there are thousands of us out here wanting to know which style camp knife can opener works best - just in case we are stranded in the wilderness and don't have any pop-top soup or bean cans, and come upon an old miner's cabin stocked in the '30s with cans of goodies; most certainly inedible, but we have to open the cans to see.

Comment by Ken Spielvogel on June 12, 2014 at 12:30

Excellent videos

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