Found a solution to my early P-38 woes that might be of interest to some...
I installed the VP Modpack, then put in a VP Modpack Update done over at AcesHigh by AH_Jetdoc, then put all the patches 4-7 on top of it and everything is working fine with a bunch of additional aircraft and carriers. The AH_Jetdoc update includes the following:
VP mod pack up date: 1. Late war Mustangs installed
2. New P-38's installed P-38 E thru late war models
3. HMS Eagle CV installed
4. USS Yorktown CV Class installed
5. Missing Channel map 1942-45 vers. Dieppe (Can)(Cat) installed
6. USS Essex CV Class installed
7. New models of P-47's including late war with new load outs
8. Missing models of SpitFires installed and new one as well
9. The model Spitfire XVIes bubble canopies installed
You can find it in this thread...p.5 for the info, p.6 for the download link (though I don't like how it is done in the sense it is the whole SAS folder (big download) rather than just the addons).
Anyway, thought it might be of interest to the more individual mod add-on handicapped like me.
http://aceshigh.ws/forum/index.php?topic=4436.0Edit: DCG now hates it with this add-on from aceshigh (and that is a deal breaker for me) so I went back to original download and managed to get the early P-38's in on my own. But this add-on pack may still be of interest to some.