Most warbird photos show an aircraft alone against the sky. The photograph of 23 Skidoo tells a different story — a P-38 Lightning flying formation with General MacArthur's personal C-121 Constellation 'Bataan,' two WWII-era aircraft in the same frame like it's 1944 all over again.
23 Skidoo is one of the Planes of Fame Air Museum's treasures, based at Chino, California. It was part of the historic 2007 gathering of six flying P-38 Lightnings at the California Capital Airshow — an event unlikely to ever be repeated given how few airworthy P-38s remain in the world. When Planes of Fame assembles multiple P-38s at the same show, photographers come from across the country. Most years there is no such show.
At that 2007 show, the formation shot with Bataan became the defining image: two of the rarest aircraft still flying, sharing the same piece of California sky. The C-121's four radial engines and unmistakable triple tail alongside the P-38's twin-boom silhouette — it is not a combination you see twice in a lifetime.