This was the 5,000th P-38 Lightning built. It was given a bright red paint job and a giant YIPPEE along the bottom of the wing, then taken out for flight demonstrations to put down some early notions that the Lightnings were pilot killers. By the end of World War 2, some 10,000 of these fork-tailed devils had been built. They were declared obsolete in 1946 and many of them were scrapped or abandoned in place on tiny Pacific islands.
Surviving planes were still in use as late as 1965 in Honduras' air force. Others were used in air racing and mapping, but today there are only 8 in flyable shape.
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