Subject: B-24 Liberator
From: "George R. Gonzalez"
Date: 8/30/03 6:29 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

Ernest K. Gann flew B-24's, or was it the cargo equivalent? Anyway, he had
a very strong dislike for the plane. His complaints as I recall them, in no
particular order:

The instrument lighting was this new "ultraviolet light" doohickey which was
supposed to be easier on the eyes. It consisted of several uv flourescent
tubes.

Quite often the inverter would crap out during takeoff or shortly after.
Normally this wasnt a huge deal, as the inverter only drove the autopilot
and a very few instruments. A second inverter was available at the flip of
a switch. But the uv lights, being ballasted flourescents, had to run off
AC-- the unreliable inverter's AC. So it got quite thrilling to be taking
off and have all the instrument lighting go out.

If the lights stayed on, they were fine for a while, but after a few hours
the uv lighting would hurt your eyes.

The very efficient wing allowed the plane to carry heavy loads. But even a
cocktail's worth of ice could severely degrade the wing's lift. The B-17
has a less advanced wing, the upside of this was that it could tolerate
considerable icing before it was severely affected.

The center tanks on some builds leaked a lot, and it didnt help to have a
open-frame DC motor (hyd. pump?) in the same compartment.

To transfer fuel between tanks, you had to hook up some jumper hoses to a
patch panel. No real way of testing for leaky hose connections short of
opening the valves and looking for squirts and drips.

I take my hat off to anyone brave enough to fly in that thing!



And it aways stank of leaking gas and all too often blew up in midair.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer