Warbird Information Exchange

Saw this on Barnstormers. Somebody at CAF HQ should start a funding campaign. Would be awesome to see the Bomb Bay back in the Bomber.



Also equally interesting:



Now if only Tanker 126 or 127 could be grabbed from Greybull.

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Way back, Gary had a little bit of discussion on this. The synopsis was that the aircraft would be down for more than a year, and that it would take considerable capital to do it. If I remember correctly, it would involve splitting the fuselage and creating a considerable number of structural parts to make it work. I want to say that he was looking at 6 figures just to build the jigs.

The other part to that is that you would need all the ancillary equipment to make the doors work and have to recreate a significant amount of the systems needed.

Hasn't the airframe always been a transport?
Did it ever have a bombay?

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Thank you for the info. BB doors? We'd just like the airplane flying again. It's been sitting too long.
Again, we'll look into what Mark has.

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John: If you will remember, she was built as an A model for the Brits. During a training flight, there was a landing accident. The decision was made to rebuild her as a transport. I suspect that another A model that was on the line was substituted to complete the delivery contract. There was probably one aircraft added to the next production contract to replace the one diverted to the Brits. Consolidated maintained ownership until the mid 50's when she was sold off to Continental Can.

The airplane came off the factory line as a fully combat configured bomber with the exception of weapons being installed. The bomb shackles were replaced with British style shackles, along with the radios. Also, the sperry bombsight was installed. British markings over the same standard US paint scheme at the time completed the airplane.

We have bomb bay doors, along with a lot of the other parts needed. What we don’t have is the several hundred thousand dollars it would take to do the work. The airplane is just about ready to start flying again after a few years of fuel tank work and engine changes. The bomb bay doors are so far down the line that It isn’t even on the radar.

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Brad

It had a pretty nice executive interior at one time. Still have some of that stuff in storage. She has been rode hard a put up wet a time or two. She'll be back in the air soon.

Thanks Brad Get back to work!!!

_________________
There are some that think old airplanes fly on fairy dust and unicorn farts.

USN Ret
Recip FE

What sort of engine changes? As I recall, the original B-24 A engine installations were replaced fairly early on by Consolidated with PBY Catalina engines and nacelles firewall forward to simplify maintenance, once the decision had been reached to retain the A/C as a company hack. And when you look at pix of 927 and PBYs, the similarity is rather striking.

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League City, Texas

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Three engines needed to be changed. So, that is being finished up. Lil does have PBY QECs on her.

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Brad

If the airframe is using the standard longeron design, I don't see a reason to split the fuselage into sections at Station 4.0 and 6.0. The fuselage nose and tail would only need support for adding back in the lower flanges of the two bulkheads, side panel modifications, and a new Station 5.0.

Correct me if I'm wrong, if I don't completely understand the Diamond Lil special structure modifications.

But I do agree the hydraulics and cabling system would not be fun.

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Chris: The only way to know for sure, would be for someone to sit down with the A model drawings and books and the opened up airplane and compare page by page and actual drawings and the airplane itself, to see what would have to be done. Wartime production sometimes leads to one off type modifications that are not well documented. In this case, DL was a one off repair and conversion. As a production guy, I would suspect that during the repairs and mod, there was a significant amount of structural changes done to remove the doors and convert the structure to a cargo configuration. Sometimes, even in the factory, it’s easier and faster to make a split at the nearest production break to do the work. Additionally, if the work is ever started, making the break means that she can be moved if circumstances require it. If you don’t split her, once the keel structure is removed, you can’t move her until the necessary structure is back in place. Unless the squadron reaches a point where they can fully fund a crew to do the work on a full time basis, she might be immobile for a year or more.

From what I recall of Gary Austin's discussion of the topic, a new keel beam would need to be fabricated. Then to install that, jigs would be required to keep all of the fuselage in alignment during the process. Keeping in mind that the goal would be to maintain the airframe as a flyer and ride-giver once the doors are reinstalled.

I also believe Gary's more immediate project was to recreate what was the flight engineer's station, but previous modifications to the hydraulic system would need to be undone.

I'm sure I have at least part of this wrong or at least overly simplified, so I'll happily yield to Brad for any corrections

So what should diamond lil be considered? Is she a LB30 or is she a b24a? I've always been under the impression that she is a LB30.

LB-30 does not mean "cargo plane" like most think. It is essentially the basic designation of B-24s (a couple of Models) that were sold to the British, regardless of how they were configured. Some were bombers and some were transports. They were always called Liberators.

Diamond Lil was ordered/started as a B-24A, S/N 40-2366. The French purchased the airplane before it was completed. When they surrendered, the British took the order. At that point it was designated as an LB-30 and given the British serial number of AM927. The US serial number was later used on a B-24D. The main differences in a B-24A and an LB-30 was the gun caliber, Bomb shackles, bomb sight and the British radios. The airplane was accepted by the British and we being used as a trainer before going to the UK and had a brake lock up on landing in Albuquerque, doing serious damage to the airplane. Consolidated took this airplane back and filled the British order with a different airframe.

The airplane was ferried back to San Diego and was converted into a transport to be used by the factory. She was used to move parts and personnel but was far from any kind of executive transport. She also was never converted to a C-87 and was not the prototype for the C-87 as has been reported in the past. She was,however, the prototyoe for the prototype C-87 She was also never a C-109, which was the tanker version of the B-24.

When the war ended and the British started accounting for all their airplanes, they realized that this airplane was still on their books. They officially gave the airplane back to Consolidated at that time. I’ve got all the paperwork about this transaction.

At different points in her wartime career, she was modified many time. But, she was neverfullycinverted to an executive transport until after the war Basically before that she had a stock military transport interior Bomb bays were deleted and windows were added. PBY QECs added and the entire nose of an RY-3 was grafted on, lengthening the airplane. All the weapon stations were covered over. This airplane never had a top turret in the traditional sense. It had a scarf ring in the roof, behind the wing and had a single machine gun. The ring is still there but unfortunately when the cargo door was added, the control cables were rerouted along the top of the airplane.

When the war ended, Consolidated started looking at B-24s for potential executive aircraft. Diamond Lil happened to be one of the airplanes they owned at the time and really wasn’t configured like any other airplane. She was chosen to be the airplane that they used to establish the type certificate to be approved by the CAA for civilian use.

The serial number, AM927, was still on the airplane because the original US serial was no longer available as it went to another B-24. They did use S/N 18 for the serial number instead of the British one but I think that was probably done for simplicity reasons. The airplane was the 18th built out of an order for twenty something but she wasn't the 18th B-24 built. I believe it was the 25th but I can see where that confusion comes from. The LB-30 designation was still on the airplane because Consolidated never changed it to anything else after they got it back from the British.

At the time she was converted she had none of the British equipment installed that made her an LB-30 and hadn’t had it for many years. She was close to a C-87 but wasn’t one and never had been. Literally, she wasn’t closer to being a B-24A, configuration wise, than she was an LB-30 at the time. The paperwork and plate said LB-30 so that is what was submitted to the CAA. I’m sure that changing all that back to B-24A was the furthest thing from anybody’s mind back then.

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Brad

Minor correction Brad- all B-24s built for and delivered to the British received an LB-30 designation, all the way past the LB-30 Liberator VIII now known as "Witchcraft". The use of suffixes appears to have been ended at some point and I wish I could find my reference again showing all of the naming conventions for the Liberators, but it showed LB-30 as the model number next to all of the Liberator variants, including the C-87s and C-109s they took delivery of direct from the factory for use in the Far East.