Warbird Kid wrote:
Yes which makes me wonder why that plane languished for so long when it seemed (from the outside) that it was so close to flying. That they could have been flying her years ago, working on her and updating her as she went. Imagine Thunderbird and the Privateer in formation. Giving rides like the Collings Foundation across the country. What a sight!
And now just like that with a wall of water, two more Consolidated airframes are written off from the list. To never fly again as it seems. It appears clear to me that the Liberator airframe and all it's variants are doomed to stay extremely rare, especially in the air.
I think it's the old warbird restoration adage "90% done with 90% to go". I wondered if the folks with the airworthy PB4Y would have been interested in installing the turrets, particularly those odd (and rare) Erco side blisters in their bird.
The Liberator, in general, has a couple strikes against it: First, unlike the B-17s, few, if any, were put into storage to avoid the mass scrappings...probably more PB4Ys survived the mass scrappings than all the other Liberator variants combined. A good chunk of the surviving Liberators were ex Indian Air Force birds. Secondly, the Liberator just doesn't seem to generate the kind of passion with the general public, and even maybe within the warbird movement that the B-17 does. We're not seeing any active Liberator restorations in the U.S., and there's at least 3 Fortress restorations to airworthy going on. That's a pity, because the Lib is certainly important as the most produced American warplane in World War II, not to mention its service over the skies of Ploesti, Gotha, Borneo and Rabaul, among just a few of the plane's exploits.