B 24 Liberator: 3 Major Design Flaws

Video from the channel Vector 1945 about Consolidated B-24 Liberator, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 6:10. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

A short piece introducing the Consolidated B-24 Liberator and analyzing three design flaws that explain its worse reputation compared to the B-17 Flying Fortress, despite being the most-produced American aircraft of the war.

Consolidated designed it to a January 1939 Army requirement calling for a four-engine heavy bomber; the prototype flew in December 1939 and from spring 1941 it was delivered to the Royal Air Force. The early models, lacking self-sealing fuel tanks and sufficient defensive armament, were used to carry priority cargo and VIPs, such as Winston Churchill, and for anti-submarine patrol, where they helped close the mid-Atlantic air gap.

Three flaws are identified: a high-aspect-ratio Davis wing that gave speed, load capacity and range but carried higher wing loading and withstood damage less well; a service ceiling lower than the B-17's, which exposed it more to anti-aircraft fire; and heavy handling that made it harder to hold formation and turned it into a preferred target for German fighters. Even so, it excelled in the Pacific, the Mediterranean and China-Burma-India, and the Navy used the single-tail PB4Y variant. More than 18,000 were built between 1940 and 1945, some under license by Douglas, North American and Ford.