liberator III delivery scheme

[brewerjerry]

Hi

    research for a future project

 

anyone know if liberator III aircraft in 1942 were delivered in US colours and painted in UK to coastal scheme

  or left the US already in coastal scheme  

 

 ex 41-1110   FK216 

 

  cheers

     jerry 

[rossm]

Hi Jerry,

  It's my belief they were painted during conversion to Coastal Command standards at Prestwick but I need to find the reference for that as it is just a hazy memory. It may have been in a thread on here?

Cheers,

Ross

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

FK216 is marked on RAF charge 12 January 1943, Category E 12 January 1943, same day, the note probably reads in transit USA to Canada.  The RCAF has no record of using it.  I presume the loss is the reason for the paint question.

[Graham Boak]

According to James Oughton's tome for Air Britain, the FK series were built by Consolidated specifically for the RAF and differed considerably from the B-24D.  Almost all of this batch did indeed spend some time with SAL for Coastal mods of some kind, but this seems to have been fairly quickly done, less than a month.  There seems no reason to insist that they would initially have been painted in USAAF colours, although whether they were actually in Coastal rather than Bomber colours as earlier British Liberators is not specified.   There is a photo of FK221 on a Queen Mary after its crash at Binbrook - this appears to be carrying a low demarcation scheme, presumably TSS?  However, there is also a photo of FK239 landing at Prestwick on its delivery flight, and this certainly does look to be in OD over NG.

[brewerjerry]

3 hours ago, Geoffrey Sinclair said:

FK216 is marked on RAF charge 12 January 1943, Category E 12 January 1943, same day, the note probably reads in transit USA to Canada.  The RCAF has no record of using it.  I presume the loss is the reason for the paint question.

Hi

    No the interest is after the loss, it was sent to 5 OTU at boundary bay BC for use as an instruction airframe 10.6.44 

  SOC 10.11.45 

 

   So I was wondering if it was still in its delivery scheme, as it never left Canada

 

    cheers

        jerry 

   

Edited September 1, 2021 by brewerjerry