B-24 Liberator

I have been doing some research and was amazed at the B-24's accident
rate. From April 10, 1944 to August 31,1944, the Replacement Training
Unit at Chatham AAF, Savannah, Georgia had 23 accidents. In those
accidents, nine of the B-24 were destroyed and there were 54 deaths.
My question: Was the B-24 particularly difficult to fly? How
difficult was it in relation to the B-17?

The comments about this being a Naval Aviation News Group are, of course,
well taken, but I trained in and flew the Navy version of the B-24 in
Hutchinson, Kansas, over fifty years ago, immediately after basic training
in the SNJ (T-6). I guess we didn't know any better but I don't recall it
being an exceptional challenge or a particularly dangerous or accident prone
aircraft. It was, however, a damn truck at first, until you got used to
it - and I think someone else has commented on its taxi and climb
characteristics. I recall it as an easier aircraft to land than some of the
30 or so types I subsequently flew - just line up that protrusion (was it a
Navigators bubble or part of the nose turret?) with the right horizon
reference for the landing weight and fly it in. It might be interesting to
you to get the accident statistics for NAS Hutchinson, KA, in the early
fifties - which I don't recall as being significant - and compare them to
your Air Force numbers. Might show that the Navy's basic training was a
better prelude to the aircraft that the AF version.

The Navy did not have much luck with the B-24 (PB4Y) either. In just
ten days at Miramar (Camp Kearny), there were three crashes with 36
fatalities. One was lost on takeoff. There has to some other
explanation other than the low flying time of the pilots. I went
straight from receiving my wings to C-118 (DC-6) transition in the
early 1960s and don't recall any particular problems. Of course, I
always had a instructor along, but he never had to take it away from
me. None of the other new pilots had any particular problems either
that I was aware of.


On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 21:31:37 -0800, Dale wrote:

Yes and no on the B-24 being harder to fly. I had no multi-engine time or large
aircraft time when I started flying the bombers. I had a still wet multi engine
rating and a bunch of Cessna time. G I started on the B-17 and found it to be
just an airplane. (A 50K pound, 4 engine taildragger...but still just an
airplane.) In 20 or 30 hours I was able to takeoff, land and taxi safely...not
up to type rating standards but safe enough. After quite a bit of time in the
-17 I started flying the -24. She just wasn't as much fun to fly. It's a pain
to taxi, needs lots of runway, climbs like a pig, is heavy on the controls,
engine out work is WORK, is difficult to trim in pitch and tough to get a
greaser landing in. But as I flew her and got to know how to handle her I
started to like her more and more. She became easy to taxi, you get used to the
control forces, trimming wasn't really all that hard and if you worked at it
you could roll the mains on and hold that nosewheel off until you ran out of
elevator. Both the -17 and the -24 have their difficult areas and their easy
areas.

the WWII training accidents...remember that the guys getting into these
airplanes only had a couple hundred hours of flying time.

--
Dale L. Falk

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing
as simply messing around with airplanes.

http://home.gci.net/~sncdfalk/flying.html

Might show that the Navy's basic training was a
better prelude to the aircraft that the AF version.

I don't want to get into an inter-service squabble, but learning to
put the SNJ on an aircraft carrier, even though it wasn't very hard,
may have added bit to our stick-and-rudder skills.

vince norris