ROWE MISSION #8 - 3 October, 1944, Tuesday

26
A STRUCTURAL TOUR
On the ground and in the air, the B-24's
slender wing and tri-cycle landing gear were
distinctive. The plane's malingers criticized its
slab-sided fuselage (10 feet high & 7 feet wide).
She was designed in wartime for war and she
wasted no space on curves. The design greatly
facilitated ordnance
capacity. The twin
bomb bays were nearly
twice as long as the
single bomb bay of the
B-17. The tricycle
landing gear made the
B-24 a delight to take
off and to land and
getting the B-24 into
take-off position with
the tricycle landing
gear where the pilot
has a solid feel, full
and complete control
is easy. It isn't as easy
or simple when an
airplane stands on its
m a in gear a n d
directional control is
from a steerable tail
wheel. Then the pilot
must nudge his rudders
or brakes carefully. When
the tail is lifted off the ground with the B-17 and
the wing is cutting the air rather then presenting
its slab to the air, lift then builds rapidly. The B-
24 handled well with normal loads, but when
exceeding gross weight capacity of 32 tons and
flown at peak altitude, the pilot had to wrestle
with it to maintain formation. Pilots soon found
that this was "par for the course" on every
mission. The 448th's Base Commanders enforced
tight formations, wingtip to wingtip, boxes pulled
OF THE B-24 �
in tight. Enemy fighters could fly over, under and
around, but never through the formation.
The entry hatch was on the underside of the
rear fuselage. Most crewmembers however,
climbed into the cabin through the bomb bay. It was
opened by an emergency handle on the right side of
the nose. Another entrance
was through the nose
wheel compartment. In the
very early B-24's, there
was an eight step
procedure for emergency
lowering of the nose
wheel, but it was replaced
in later models with a
system whereby you just
"kicked it out".
The wings housed
18 self-sealing fuel tanks.
Attention to engine
placement was a major
consideration in its design,
so the nacelle was no more
than 1 1/2 inches higher
than the top of the wing
surface. The engine had a
small frontal cross-section
This end meant business - nose turret, bombardier’s station & reducing drag significantly
navigator’s astral dome.
and was turbo supercharged
for operation at high
altitudes. All used hydromatic three-bladed, fullfeathering
propellers with a distinctive yellow tip
that helped pilots synchronize engines. The
propeller assembly was 11 feet in diameter. Much
of the credit for the speed and the range of the
Liberator goes to the Pratt & Whitney Twin-Wasp
radial engines which were dubbed "Old Faithful".
They withstood 110 degree heat in Africa and the
ice and snow of the English and Alaska winters.
The four engines served other purposes than