Consolidated B-24 Liberator F-7

The Liberator's range made it as valuable for photography as for bombing, and the F-7 family was the result. The XF-7 was the photographic reconnaissance prototype developed from the B-24D. The production F-7 was developed from the -FO block B-24H.

The two definitive versions came from the B-24J. The F-7A carried three cameras in the nose and three more in the bomb bay; the F-7B concentrated all six in the bomb bay. The US Navy used its own equivalent, the PB4Y-1P, derived from the PB4Y-1.

These aircraft mapped and photographed targets in theatres where no other Allied aircraft had the necessary radius of action, especially in the Pacific and in China-Burma-India, and their work was the mandatory first step of any bombing campaign. In the RAF the equivalent role fell to Coastal Command general reconnaissance Liberators.