B-24 Liberator

"Dale" wrote in message

The LB-30 was a bomber built for the British. After Pearl Harbor, and
prior
to delivery to the British, the USAAF commandeered them. Some, like the
CAF's, were converted to transports.

Just checked and it seems that they were all built as bombers....were
B-24A/B
redesignated as LB (Liberator British) -30 when given to England. In the
case
of the CAF Diamond Lil she crashed on her deliveray flight and rebuilt as
a
transport version.

I took a flight on Diamond Lil a year ago last spring; posted a report here
(it was a mondo cool experience)!g

IIRC, that airframe was built for the French, but slated for delivery to the
Brits after the fall of France. While there is no bomb bay, there are large
box-like structures where the bomb bay would have been, and the mountings
for the turret guns were still evident. They had "grafted" a bomber nose
onto the transport airframe for appearance sake.

The pilots gave the same basic analysis of flying qualities that were posted
here.

It was one noisy SOB. I don't think I would have wanted to go very far on
it without GOOD hearing protection.

IIRC, the engines were an earlier version of the same Wright Cyclones that
powered the S2 series. The S2, in fact, had a larger weapons/stores
capacity than the Liberator did (but could not go quite so farg).

It was a great experience!

Bill Kambic

CDR, USNR(Ret). Veteran: VS-27, VS-30, VS-73 (among others)

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