RAAF B-24M A72-176

[72modeler]

Got this from an old friend this morning, and I thought many of you might enjoy reading about her history and restoration. What a labor of love! This one's for you, @tonyot!

Mike

 

https://acesflyinghigh.wordpress.com/2018/11/17/restoring-the-last-surviving-raaf-consolidated-b-24-liberator-2018-update/

 

Looking at the photos of the cockpit, it appears to me that this is an example of the bronze green known to have been used by Consolidated and other manufacturers that was later replaced by dull dark green. I think this is a good approximation of the color, because IIRC  bronze  green has a sight sheen to it compared to the more matte dull dark green. What do you think, @Dana Bell?

 

Quite a testament to the quality of the original manufacturing process that you can take the wings from a B-24D and bolt them onto a B-24M! (They sure don't make Fords like that nowadays!)

 

Edited July 1, 2020 by 72modeler
added text

[Ray_W]

Hi Mike, thanks for posting. Fascinating. Did not know this was happening. Late 2018 update. I wonder we're their at 2020. Ray 

[tonyot]

Thanks Mike,..... they are doing a lovely job aren`t they eh? Nice Boomerang too.

Cheers

           Tony

Edited July 1, 2020 by tonyot

[Work In Progress]

3 hours ago, 72modeler said:

Quite a testament to the quality of the original manufacturing process that you can take the wings from a B-24D and bolt them onto a B-24M!

Why wouldn't you? They were both built in the same factory - Consolidated San Diego - same jigs, same production line. I would be surprised if you couldn't.

Edited July 1, 2020 by Work In Progress

[72modeler]

1 hour ago, Work In Progress said:

They were both built in the same factory - Consolidated San Diego

Almost- see the link to production numbers and assembly plants- most of the M's were Ford-built. what I actually meant, but didn't express it clearly enough, was it was a testament to the workmanship involved back then that you could mate wings from a different variant, most likely built at a different plant, that were lying out in the open for 70+ years, and they could be bolted up to another variant's fuselage.

Mike

 

https://www.airplanesofthepast.com/b24-liberator-production-assembly-plants.htm

[Ed Russell]

It's a very interesting project. They are good customers for our Liberator books and occasionally I do a personal delivery.

They are all volunteers and work pretty hard under a constant threat of eviction, site redevelopment and/or takeover.

Feel free to send them a donation.

This is their web site https://www.b24australia.org.au/home

[Work In Progress]

On 7/1/2020 at 10:40 PM, 72modeler said:

Almost- see the link to production numbers and assembly plants- most of the M's were Ford-built. what I actually meant, but didn't express it clearly enough, was it was a testament to the workmanship involved back then that you could mate wings from a different variant, most likely built at a different plant, that were lying out in the open for 70+ years, and they could be bolted up to another variant's fuselage.

Mike

 

https://www.airplanesofthepast.com/b24-liberator-production-assembly-plants.htm

Both those specific aircraft, 42-41091 and 44-41956, were San Diego though, nothing to do with Ford. The Werribee one is a B-24M-5-CO, the donor of the wings and tail is a 

B-24D-130-CO

Edited July 4, 2020 by Work In Progress

[EwenS]

All the RAAF B-24 came from the Consolidated San Diego factory except for A72-300 to -405 which were B-24J built by the North American Aviation Dallas factory. The last Consolidated aircraft, a B-24M A72-198, was delivered to the RAAF in Jan 1945 with the NAA built B-24J deliveries beginning in March 1945.

[Michael51]

Made a few visits in the past to this aircraft and had a chance to get inside and look around.

 

The abiding impression is just how thin the fuelage skin is, so very thin.

 

I have trouble imagining how frail the aircrew would have been (or felt), up there, on oxygen and cold and scared.

 

Michael

[Work In Progress]

1 hour ago, Michael51 said:

Made a few visits in the past to this aircraft and had a chance to get inside and look around.

 

The abiding impression is just how thin the fuelage skin is, so very thin.

 

I have trouble imagining how frail the aircrew would have been (or felt), up there, on oxygen and cold and scared.

 

Michael

Very true. I think a lot war movies give a wholly misleading impression - understandably so for narrative and practical filming purposes - of what it's like being in a WW2 era combat type or even an airliner cockpit. Cramped, incredibly noisy and often very cold in some parts of the airframe, very hot in others. But the necessity of getting bulky analogue cameras in, and making your stars look good (and recognisable) on screen, and having the audience hear what they are saying, did rather leave a generation of moviegoers with the general impression of flight decks being more on the scale of the wheelhouse of a big ship, and the engines and airflow creating a low melodious hum under nuanced conversation.

 

The first film to really give a more realistic impression was probably the 1990 Memphis Belle. B-17 rather than B-24, but much of a muchness. The crew looked cramped and scared and deafened and cold in that.  Also young and (at the time) largely unknown actors, which helped a lot. 

 

Much the same goes for submarines, which are so much more cramped than movie-land generally depicts.

[gingerbob]

38 minutes ago, Work In Progress said:

...to really give a more realistic impression was probably the 1990 Memphis Belle...

 

Boy, I sure don't see those two fragments coupled very often!  What a terrible movie from the point of view of "more realistic impression".

[Work In Progress]

You might not like it as a film but from the point of view of the noise and discomfort of the onboard experience it is significantly more realistic than most '50s, '60s and '70s  WW2 movies

Edited July 5, 2020 by Work In Progress

[Michael51]

4 minutes ago, Work In Progress said:

You might not like it as a film but from the point of view of the noise and discomfort of the onboard experience it is significantly more realistic than most '50s, '60s and '70s  WW2 movies

Which, I believe was the point being made in your post. It is the best representation of terrified young men in a combat aircraft that I recall. Never mind the soppy bits.

 

The screaming and yelling was a more realistic representation than say Gregory Peck in "Twelve O'clock High".

 

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to correspond with American John Howland, navigator on a 381st B-17G. He sent me a copy of his unpublished (as far as I am aware) diary/memoir of his time there and then nominally with the 91stBG as a PFF crew. He describes a lot of arguing, yelling and screaming, as well as panic and trauma in his memoir. The reason they were assigned to PFF duties had more to do with their perceived insubordination than anything else and they appear to have yelled and screamed through that too. And always the flying flak fragments and the fear and the cold and the stress. Ghastly business.

 

Michael

[Steve N]

Here is a photo of some B-24 bits I have in original, unweathered Dull Dark Green.  It's a very dark, very matte color.  These were among thousands of leftover parts when the Emerson Electric factory in St. Louis, Missouri was shut down at the end of the war.  The parts were collected in barrels, and ended up forgotten in a warehouse, where they were discovered decades later.  Fortunately they were given to a local aviation museum (I was given these parts years ago for winning a "guess the airplane" contest.)  They've never been exposed to weather or sunlight, so the color is about as close as you're gonna get to the exact specification.

 

SN

 

Edited July 5, 2020 by Steve N

[Steve N]

Here's an example of Dull Dark Green as applied to the nose compartment of a Ford-build B-24L.  This is one of a group of nose art panels that were saved from scrapped B-24s and B-17s, owned by the Commemorative Air Force and on loan to the Experimental Aircraft Association Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.  Only a modeler would be as interested in the back sides of the panels as much as the exterior nose art!

 

SN