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Most of us know that the B-24 was produced in the greatest numbers of any American military aircraft, and for a long time we thought that the Bf 109 held the global prize, until the 1990s when it became okay to admit that the Soviet Union had done something worthwhile in the war, including producing even more Il-2s than Germany produced 109s.
Sheer numbers, of course, are not the whole story if you are thinking about total production effort. It has occurred to many of us that the B-24's production record is all the more impressive considering that it is a heavy bomber, much larger and more complex than a fighter. But how impressive exactly? One way to get a handle on it is to multiply the number produced by the empty weight for various types to get the total pounds of each type made, reasoning that that is a decent proxy for the amount of human and industrial effort that went into each production program.
When you do this, you find that the B-24, by weight, was easily the most-produced military aircraft of the war, and probably the most-produced aircraft ever. 674 million pounds of them were made.
Less than half that tonnage (348 million pounds) of Il-2s were built, and still fewer Bf 109s (200 million pounds). In fact, the second most produced airplane of the war by weight (of the types that I thought to look up) was the B-17, at 460 million pounds. Even the Lancaster (269 million pounds) and B-29 (296 million pounds) outweighed the Bf 109 programme. Which puts the Allied heavy bomber campaign into perspective. The B-25 is right behind the 109 with 194 million pounds produced.
Still, the 109 edges out the other single-seat fighters. The logical American contender would be the P-47, produced in greater numbers and also heavier than any other U.S. fighter, but it was made to the tune of only 156 million pounds.
I also thought it might be fun to compare more modern aircraft, both military and civilian. Though made in much smaller numbers, the more successful represent a large production effort because of their sheer size. Two of the more conspicuously successful, the Boeing 747 and 737, have been produced to a greater extent (by weight) than any warbird except the B-24 (554 million pounds and 535 million pounds respectively). It's nice to think that society has poured as much resources into these types that form the backbone of air travel and have enriched our lives as some of our more effective weapons. Still, it is all the more amazing that more tons of B-24s were produced in about five years than 747s in 45 years.
Modern military aircraft haven't been produced in such great numbers, but they've gotten bigger and heavier. The C-130 has been produced to about the same tonnage as the immortal C-47. The F-4 phantom turns out to be America's most-produced fighter by weight, edging out the P-47 even though produced in only one-third the numbers.
Here's the table from which I drew these conclusions. The weights have to be taken as approximate, given that most of the aircraft concerned had different variants, often with very different weights.
Aircraft Wt # prod Total Pounds
B-24 36500 18482 674593000
B-747 380000 1458 554040000
B-737 69000 7755 535095000
B-17 36135 12731 460034685
Il-2 9612 36183 347790996
B-29 74500 3970 295765000
Lancaster 36457 7377 268943289
Bf 109 5893 33984 200267712
B-25 19480 9984 194488320
C-47 18135 10000 181350000
C-130 75800 2300 174340000
F-4 30328 5195 157553960
P-47 10000 15660 156600000
Fw 190 7060 20000 141200000
MiG-21 10079 11496 115868184
Spitfire 5090 20351 103586590
P-40 6350 13738 87236300
Hurricane 5743 14553 83577879
F-15 28000 1198 33544000
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