Stored, disassembled Lib at abandoned Colorado airport

[george]

While looking at a fascinating website regarding abandoned and forgotten airfields, I noticed what appears to be a Lib stored at Valley Airport, an abandoned airfield in Fort Collins, Colorado. Scroll down to the eighth photo pertaining to this airfield, and between two buildings is what I think is a Lib.

http://members.tripod.com/airfields_fre ... #ftcollins

[12XU2A3X3]

well, it looks like a nose anyway. that's exciting!!

[davem]

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/b24regis ... al557.html



http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/vin ... craft-ltd/

Last edited by davem on Sat Aug 07, 2010 9:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[ZRX61]

Looks like more than a nose, the wing is laying there..

[12XU2A3X3]

does anyone have detailed info about the crash, what's left

[Steve Nelson]

Here are a couple of pages from an old issue of "Liberator Lore" that detail the Morrison-Knudsen LB-30s and their fates.

SN

[corsair166b]

Seems like I repeat this process every few years...

It is AL557, an LB 30 formerly owned by Morrison Knudsen, now owned by the Whittington brothers, stored alongside Darryl Skurich's hangar at the downtown Ft. Collins airport, which incidentally is now closed due to some overzealous developer but may be on its way to reopening as some court case was won a few weeks ago that may lead to the airport reopening....anyway, as regards the Lib, it used to be stored at the end of the runway in the open along with some F-82 parts...those have long since found other homes, but the LB-30 was moved about 6 years ago to the side of the hangar so it could be watched over...

What's inside the hangar is almost as exciting as what's being stored outside...inside the hangar is the Evergreen A6M3 'Hamp" Zero that will eventually reside at McMinnville...

Mark

[Dan K]

Seems like I repeat this process every few years...

It is AL557, an LB 30 formerly owned by Morrison Knudsen, now owned by the Whittington brothers, stored alongside Darryl Skurich's hangar at the downtown Ft. Collins airport, which incidentally is now closed due to some overzealous developer but may be on its way to reopening as some court case was won a few weeks ago that may lead to the airport reopening....anyway, as regards the Lib, it used to be stored at the end of the runway in the open along with some F-82 parts...those have long since found other homes, but the LB-30 was moved about 6 years ago to the side of the hangar so it could be watched over...

What's inside the hangar is almost as exciting as what's being stored outside...inside the hangar is the Evergreen A6M3 'Hamp" Zero that will eventually reside at McMinnville...

Mark

From almost four years ago, Mark!


http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.o ... 36&start=0

[corsair166b]

Bingo...beautiful...thank you Dan K....great recollecting. But to add a bit more, recently I was contacted by a party in California about the possibility of the B-17 parts still being there, they were interested in using them (coincidentally) in a B-17 restoration that was pulled out of a bar here in Greeley about 2 years ago (the bar was called the State Armory) and in it they had the fuselage of the B-17 that they used in the 12 o'clock high TV series...unfortunately the B-17 wing parts (and they were B-17 wing parts and tips) that were at Skurich's place had up and dissappeared and it was found out that Paul Allen had gotten ahold of them. Unfortunate for the California group, who I wish the largest amount of luck in restoring the ex Greeley bar B-17....

Thought you'd wanna know.

Mark

[Pogo]

Speaking of LB-30's ....... what makes 'em different from B-24's? I thought the story was that LB-30's were basically B-24A's that were designated for delivery to the French and British air forces under Lend-Lease, and that the only real difference was that the recipients supplied their own guns and radio equipment.

But those windshields have always puzzled me. The B-24A seems to have a three-pane windscreen and a greenhouse overhead....



.... whereas the LB-30 a two-paner and solid overhead.



'Scuze me if this has already been covered ........ but I've been searching all morning with the same luck as before: zero.

[Fouga23]

Lil got a nose from a Navy Lib fitted later on in her life.

[Dan K]

Speaking of LB-30's ....... what makes 'em different from B-24's? I thought the story was that LB-30's were basically B-24A's that were designated for delivery to the French and British air forces under Lend-Lease, and that the only real difference was that the recipients supplied their own guns and radio equipment.

But those windshields have always puzzled me. The B-24A seems to have a three-pane windscreen and a greenhouse overhead....



.... whereas the LB-30 a two-paner and solid overhead.



'Scuze me if this has already been covered ........ but I've been searching all morning with the same luck as before: zero.

Gary Austin knew the history of Diamond Lil/Ol' 927 backwards and forwards, but I'm pretty confident the LB-30's came out of the factory with the 3-piece windshield, and that the 2-piece unit was a later conversion. Check out the following pic of LB-30 "One Dam_ed Island After Another":

http://www.b24bestweb.com/images/LB30/L ... NOTHER.JPG

[Second Air Force]

Pogo,

You're correct--there were very few differences between the B-24A and early LB-30s. The oil tanks on the CAF Liberator are marked B-24A.



AM927 (her AAC serial was 40-2366, later re-used on a B-24D) was pretty much identical to that color photo of 40-2376 that you posted. Notice the black on the vertical fins is shaded differently where the RAF fin flashes have been overpainted on that color photo of #76.

The two piece windshield came later, I'll attempt to explain:

When Gary had AM927 opened up we photographed the hand-painted markings "RY3-38" on the cockpit floor structure.



We came to the conclusion that the long-nosed conversion of '927 was done with a redundant RY-3 fuselage forward section and the B-24M style cockpit enclosure was part of that mod. Though it isn't absolutely confirmed, it appears that a total of 37 RY-3 airframes were completed, which would make the "38" the first redundant forward section. AM927 was refurbished and overhauled around the time the RY-3 contract came to an end, so the pieces of the puzzle fit pretty well. AL557 also has the two-piece windshield framing. When I was researching the other early Liberators I found that at least two others, AL557 and one I can't remember ( sorry, I've not thought about the Liberator project for a couple of years now...) had the two-pane windshields. The implication is that at least these three LB-30s were updated to the most modern configuration at more-or-less the same time, sometime in early to mid '45. I should also mention that AL557 was a Liberator II with the elongated nose common to all the later versions. I think she got an RY-3 forward fuselage in the same fashion as '927 because of the outward opening nosegear doors she had after modification. The Liberator II had inward opening nosegear doors originally. Another discussion thread here: http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.o ... w=previous

Here are two photos of AM927, the first, short-nosed, configuration was taken in the latter part of '44:


And a nice profile shot of her in Continental Can colors.



I think this photo can be attributed to Bill Larkins but am not certain. She was sold to Continental Can in her final wartime configuration with the two-piece enclosure. CCC flew her unpainted for a short time before applying the more familiar two-tone scheme.
Hope this helps,
Scott

Last edited by Second Air Force on Sun Aug 08, 2010 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Rajay]

It is AL557, an LB 30 formerly owned by Morrison Knudsen, now owned by the Whittington brothers, stored alongside Darryl Skurich's hangar at the downtown Ft. Collins airport...

Mark

Sorry if this is a bit of a tangent, but does anyone know more about the Whittington brothers and their airplanes. I was told by Hal Beale that when he sold his McKinnon G-21D turbine Goose (N150M, s/n 1251) in 1980, it was to the Whittington brothers, but it was subsequently (almost two years later) registered to "Water Fowl Inc." of Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Was that a Whittington brothers' "front" company? I've read that they were busted while smuggling drugs into the country and the rumor is that N150M was seized by the government of either Haiti or Cuba and ended up being scrapped sometime in the mid-1990's. Even so, it remains on the ever accurate FAA civil registry. I'd really love to be able to nail down just what exactly happened to it.

[Pogo]

You're correct--there were very few differences between the B-24A and early LB-30s.

RY-3 ....... Liberator II ....... B-24M ....... and now, "early LB-30"? Were there late model LB-30's?? Thanks a million for all the help, fellas, it is truly and well appreciated as always! But I feel so uneducated; is there a particularly good book or other resource I could apply to in order to learn more about these birds without devoting my life to it? I'm supposed to be diligently researching WWI machine guns right now, not the B-24 genome.....