[bjgregory]

How accurate and well modeled are the P-38J and P-38L in the game?

As far as I'm aware they're okay, there's a lot of whining about the effects of compressibility on the Lightning, but I'm not sure how justified this is. I think it's more a problem of Oleg's selective modelling syndrome, where he'll model the effects of compressibility on one aircraft because it was a problem that was especially noted on that aircraft (which may be justified on the '38 given its rather low limiting Mach number), but without much examination into its effects on other aircraft apart from the notable exception of the 109 based upon testimony from British flight-test reports that the elevator became very heavy at high speeds...it's useful to know, but given that these reports are likely to be taken as a comparison between the 109 and the Spitfire, it's perhaps not a surprising conclusion given that the Spit has a very light elevator to start with, and one of the highest tactical Mach numbers of the war (about 0.8, by comparison the Lightning's tactical Mach number was about 0.68 ). It's not that they're badly modelled, it's that no other aircraft are so badly affected by the same phenomena, I believe. From Eric Brown's book:
"We knew from tests at RAE on captured German fighters that the Me 109 and Fw 190 both had a tactical Mach number of 0.75, so that figure was the name of the combat game at 30,000 feet. The tests we conducted on the American fighters revealed that the Lightning and Thunderbolt fell well short of that figure, with tactical Mach numbers of 0.68 and 0.71 respectively. However, the Mustang with its laminar-flow wing achieved 0.78 tactically..." It's strange, the Spitfire in the game falls apart before reaching the speed at which RAE flight tests determined it became difficult to maneuver. Some of the Vne speeds in the game seem to be just best-guesses, really.
I think DT are looking into high-altitude and high-speed flight characteristics, though.