Thursday, August 3, 2023

B-24 Liberator Bomber at Factory WW2 World War Two

 


11 comments:

  1. At peak production, the Willow Run plant was rolling out one every hour.

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  2. There must be something wrong with the pic. Where is the left vertical stabilizer?
    Al_in_Ottawa

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    1. good question.
      the shadow on the apron shows none.

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    2. It's at a factory, perhaps it's not complete.

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  3. What is the Navy version of the B-24?
    PB4Y-1
    PB4Y-1. The PB4Y-1 was the US Navy's equivalent to the twin-tailed B-24D. Early on, many of these received from the AAF had their glass noses retrofitted with Erco bow turrets. Production PB4Y-1s were delivered with Consair nose turrets.

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  4. The Postmaster in the little town I grew up in flew 50 missions as a tail gunner in a B-24 out of Southern Italy. He said “I just did what they told me, and it always worked out. I found myself doing things I would never have thought of myself”.

    He was the town's historian, and once said “I have seniority in this town. Not that that means anything".

    He was a wonderful man.

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  5. The tug is a Ford BNO 40, based on the 9N tractor.

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    Replies
    1. As one would expect, if that photo was taken at Willow Run.

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  6. “ In fact, the initial work was conducted in early 1942 when Consolidated did wind tunnel tests to look at a single-fin variant of the B-24 that would go onto to become the PB4Y-2 Privateer patrol aircraft for the US Navy. But it seems that another manufacturer of the B-24 were also thinking about the issue.
    Ford were one of the primary builders of the B-24 at their vast factory in Willow Run, Michigan and in 1943 they took a -D model aircraft and swapped the tail for that of a Douglas B-23 Dragon bomber, creating the B-24ST (for single-tail), which flew in March of that year. The results must have been encouraging enough that they decided to take the next step as the -ST was then retrofitted with the tail from a Douglas C-54 transport, creating the XB-24K.” https://tinyurl.com/mwr62kt6

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  7. The B24 was a substantial improvement in range and payload over the B17. Did them no good at Ploesti.

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  8. The C87 was a dog, though. Ask Ernie Gann, although he has passed.

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