Barksdale AFB B-24 (pics)

[Steve Nelson]

But being the only Ford B-24 this side of the pond,

Actually, the B-24(L? M?) at the Canada Aviation Museum in Ottawa is also a Ford machine. Since Yankee recently got ahold of the second DHC Carabou built (and I'm assuming the oldest one in existence) seems like it would make a great trade. The Carabou is certainly more important to the history of Canadian aviation than the B-24 (and Ottawa's Lib is currenly in the storage hangar anyway.) I've heard rumors that the idea was batted around, but I don't think there were ever any formal talks..just idle specualation by the Yankee folks.

SN

[steve dickey]

Does anybody have interior shots of that one?

[peter]

I remember reading about that one being flown into Rockliffe many years ago for the museum. Doubt she will ever be allowed to leave!

[Steve Nelson]

She's a beauty, no question. At least she's indoors and well cared-for, although I wish she were a bit more accessibly displayed. That was the best pic I was able to get, and it was taken by hoisting my camera on the end of an extnded tripod and shooting over the back of the Canso.

Back to the original topic, did the Barksdale B-24 ever have cowl panels attached since being restored? I've seen pics of her during her days at Spartan, and the nacelles were completely missing. It seems a bit odd that the nose bowls appear to have been "bird proofed" with screens, but the engines and accessory sections are left wide open.

SN

[Django]

Now there's one that doesn't pop up too often. Thanks Steve.

[tulsaboy]

Steve,

look at the photos on the attached link. The Barksdale B-24 did have panels at one time. Who knows where they are. At one point, someone posted photos of some of the pieces and parts from the B-29 that are in a yard there at Barksdale. Maybe they're in the same area?

kevin

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/b24regis ... 48781.html

[cozmo]

The port side engines had panels at one time. The starboard side panels have been gone for 20, or so, years. If they ever had them. Maybe they are using the port side panels as patterns to make starboard side ones.

This is the starboard side from the early 90's.

[groundpounder]

get that darn thing inside!!!!

[seabee1526]

Pretty Airplane.....

[RickH]

That was the old guy, what about the new guy ?

[gary1954]

[quote="cozmo"]The port side engines had panels at one time. The starboard side panels have been gone for 20, or so, years. If they ever had them. Maybe they are using the port side panels as patterns to make starboard side ones.

My guess is that No One knows where the panels are, and Command really doesn't give a tinkers Dayum one way or the other, for if Command did, then Command would task someone to seek out and find the missing panels. If they could not be found, then Command who has the Power, would task the sheetmetal shop to obtain copies of the original drawings and manufacture and install said missing Panels. The key is having a Command that actually gives a Sh** about this historical airframe. Plus being, what only one of two remaining Ford built left in the world. Does Command even consider this airframe in budget planning? Probably not to never.

[JohnB]

But imagine if the YAF could get it and make her airworthy. Sigh...

I would love to see a Liberator fly from Willow Run.
BUT (and there is always a but)...
The 24 is darn near "there aren't many left so they shouldn't be flown", IMHO.
Imagine how we'd feel if it were lost....
We even have more static B-29s than 24s, if I'm not mistaken.
When we get down to a handful of airframes, each one should be protected to the best of our ability...and that means that it shouldn't be left outdoors.

[Warbird Kid]

But imagine if the YAF could get it and make her airworthy. Sigh...

I would love to see a Liberator fly from Willow Run.
BUT (and there is always a but)...
The 24 is darn near "there aren't many left so they shouldn't be flown", IMHO.
Imagine how we'd feel if it were lost....
We even have more static B-29s than 24s, if I'm not mistaken.
When we get down to a handful of airframes, each one should be protected to the best of our ability...and that means that it shouldn't be left outdoors.

Here here! It should NOT be outside. None of those WWII airframes should be. But I also will have to respectably say NO! There are not enough 24's in the air and it would be a shame to keep the rest on the ground just because of the fear of losing them. With that mindset MAAM should finish up there P-61 and put her inside a climate controlled building permanently. Now tell me you don't want to see that fighter in the air? And there's only 4 of those left! And we already have 2 flyable B-24s. Why wouldn't we want to try and enlarge the population of flying types? If these planes are taken care of properly then the risk of loosing one of them from flying is considerably low in my opinion. While I agree the surviving population of 24s is very low we should try and get a few more airframes back in the air for people to better understand the aircraft in its natural habitat. Kermit Week's for a start, and the second should be this one, returned to her place of inception, to grace the skies alongside the B-25 and B-17 of YAM's.

Taking a more radical unlikely approach we should be trying to reproduce whole Liberator airframes. Were already seeing a few B-17 projects being built from mostly nothing, so why not the B-24?

Let the Barksdale B-24 go to YAM to get restored to fly!!!!!!!!

[tulsaboy]

Warbird Kid-

I'll go ahead and be the negative nancy, though I usually play the role of the cheery optimist...

I don't think that we'll ever see the flying B-24 population significantly increase over what is currently flying. The one real exception is most likely Kermit's example, though time and time again he has demonstrated his strong preference for fighters or things he can fly by himself. I seriously doubt his B-24 will take to the skies anytime in the next decade. I think that the lack of serious candidates for restoration to flight that are owned by private individuals or flying museums is the biggest barrier to seeing more B-24s fly. The other is parts availability and support. The B-17 population is so healthy precisely because the aforementioned challenges for a B-24 don't exist for the B-17. There is a healthy population of B-17s in private hands- and I don't have any doubts that over the long haul, some of the NMUSAF inventory currently on gate guard duty might work its way into private hands as well. Not the case with the B-24. There are significant quantities of parts available to support the B-17 (at least compared to the B-24), and the informal co-op that has developed to support those flying or restoring B-17s has made economies of scale work to lower the costs for restoring and flying B-17s. The B-24s will exist essentially as one-offs, as the two flying are so different as to almost constitute different airplanes altogether. I would even question how much mutual support might take place between Collings and Kermit should he want to fly his.

There are some major airframe components out there that could be recovered. You would think that with there being 40+ B-17s in recovered, intact condition, the PNG explorers might be more interested in recovering the numerous B-24 components than Swamp Ghost or the Black Cat Pass airframe. Not so. The B-17 is more valuable commercially, and probably has a greater chance of being restored as an original airframe than the B-24 components do. The cost involved in recovering the B-24 components compared to the B-17s is likely similar, though the cost of restoring the aircraft is most likely substantially different. Everything on the B-24 would have to be hand made or custom-made through a machine shop, without the benefit of the economies of scale currently being enjoyed by the B-17 operators.

I also think that the flying B-17s, plus to a limited extent the B-24s and the B-29, fill the "4-engined flying WWII bomber" slot in most folks' minds. The average person doesn't know and doesn't care about the difference between the B-17 and the B-24, and the news media (that we depend on to bring our little hobby some needed publicity) can't usually decipher the difference either. That doesn't mean that getting another B-24 into the air is not a worthy cause, or something that I would celebrate and encourage. Rather, it is an acknowledgement that as we get farther and farther from WWII, and as we lose more and more of the guys that flew and fought in these machines, we lose the collective memory of these aircraft as weapons of war and find that most people (if they know what they are at all) are surprised that they aren't all in museums and that the government still allows them to fly.

There also seems to be a lack of romance attached to the B-24. The B-17, for some reason, (maybe just better PR guys at Boeing 70 years ago) seems to inspire feelings in people that the B-24 just doesn't. I would argue that more people know the "Flying Fortress" than the "Liberator."

Can another B-24 fly? Sure, with enough cash. Can we resurrect some airframes from Alaska, PNG etc. and cobble together a couple more nice combat-vet static airframes? Sure. Doubt that it will happen, but it can be done. Will more than one (or MAYBE) two more different B-24 airframes EVER see wind underneath their wings again? Seriously, seriously doubt it. Would love to see it happen, but I just don't think it's going to.

I love the Barksdale example. It called Tulsa home from 1945-1979 or so. Would love to have it back here. Would definitely support it going north to Willow Run, though. Hope that someone has the right pull and the right politics to make that happen. Good luck, guys!

kevin

[gale_dono]

Money is the key issue in flying any of these aircraft, and I don't really see where it's going to come from at this point in time.