Another history lesson
 

Hi All

The Genius of Henry Ford. This was before Pearl Harbor. Ford's B-24 Bomber Plant at Willow Run, MI. Henry Ford was determined that he could mass produce bombers just as he had done with cars. He built the Willow Run assembly plant and proved it. It was the world's largest building under one roof. Even then Ford had a better idea. This film will absolutely blow you away - one B-24 every 55 minutes. There ended todays lesson :teach:

https://youtu.be/iKlt6rNciTo

Enjoy

Tony :no4:

Nice!!!

Wish I could fly one of those.

Thanks Tony. :salute:

I toured a B24 at an airshow years ago. What surprised me most was how small these "big" bombers are inside. Yes, men were shorter two generations ago. But the bomb racks in a B17 are not very wide.

Who knew?
 

Who built the B-24 ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKlt6rNciTo#at=60

Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation were the designers and builders of the B24 Liberator but the demand was greater than they could supply and as with the Willys MB, Ford became involved in the manufacture of somebody else's product.

I had a friend who was a flight engineer on B24s and I recall him telling me of being sent to Tocumwal (NSW, Australia) to pick up a new aircraft and the crew were astonished to find that it was Ford built.

Even in those days the male population of Australia seemed to be divided into two camps, Ford or GM(Chev) devotees. The pro GM crew members were sceptical that Ford could build a decent aeroplane as "they couldn't even build a decent car". I understand that Ford built B24s performed just as well as Consolidated.

I have the hydraulic and armament manuals for the B24D and both are Consolidated Vultee publications but not entirely. The section of the armaments manual devoted to maintenance of the .50 calibre M2 machine gun was put out by Training Services, General Motors War Products and prepared by the AC Spark Plug and Frigidaire Divisions.

Everybody had a finger in the pie.

David

Ford B-24s
 

There were some interesting aspects to the way Ford built them too.

Ford was no stranger to aircraft manufacture of course with their famous Trimotor, but they revolutionised the way the B-24s were built by making use of lessons learned in car manufacture. One of these was extensive use of drilling and tapping jigs.

I may have the figures wrong, but from memory it used to take many hours for Consolidated to drill and tap all the holes in the main spar section which supported the centre of the aircraft including the bomb bay.

Ford designed a jig which did the operation far more accurately and reduced the time from many hours to just two minutes!

While Henry Ford lent his immense mass production skills to the war effort, he relied on assistance from Charles Lindbergh for Aviation expertise.

Despite the undoubted contribution these two made to the war effort, both were viewed at the time as suspected Nazi Sympathisers. They were prominent in the pre-war (Dec '41 in the US) movement to keep the US out of the European war, and both were highly regarded by the Nazi regime. Significantly, both too had been the subject of scandals for apparent anti-semitic views.

I read somewhere that Henry built more vehicles for the Axis (not by choice, but because his factories were over run) than for the Allies. How true is this?

Ford and GM in Europe
 

Both Ford and GM built axis vehicles once they had been taken over by the enemy.

There's more to it than merely bring taken over, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...nazicars30.htm for example....

Indeed, who knew? :teach:

A very interesting article Hanno. Not quite my schoolboy image of Ford or G.M.
It seems at least, of the big three, Chrysler had a lot less egg on its face.
You have somewhat damaged my heroic picture of Henry Ford. Interesting that it said Hitler could not have considered invading Czechoslovakia, without G.M.
Thanks for posting.

Seems they weren't fussy about who's pie they had their fingers in either.

David

Ford and the B-24 Liberator.
 

There are a couple of good reads on Ford and the B-24 project,

My Forty years with Ford. by Charles E Sorenson.
(Covers the years 1905 - 1944)
ISBN 0-8143-3279-X Originally pub. 1956.Reprinted 2006.
Sorensen was the prime mover of the Willow Run B-24 plant.

Ford In The Service of America. by Timothy J O'Callaghan. Pub. 2009.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4485-4

cheers
Bill.

The Ford built B24's had a rep for being heavy on the controls and a bit of a "dog".

Apparently the early Ford B24's had quality control problems and were not liked by the crews for that reason. "heavy on the controls" had nothing to do with Ford and was a result of Consolidated design and all B24's regardless of manufacturer flew the same for that particular model.

They were consistently upgraded and became the largest production of bombers during WW2 exceeding the more famous B17 Fortress production by a considerable margin. They had many performance features superior to the B17 including speed and range but were more complex.

Ford built about 3/4 of all the 18,000 B24's made.

They were a sophisticated aircraft for their day and took a bit of mastering. Crew training and experience were vital to their successful operation and many were lost due to crew ineptitude. Something as simple as leaving the cowl gills open could seriously degrade aircraft performance. The flight engineer had a roving commission and moved around inside the aircraft giving attention where it was needed whether it was just routine or maybe a runaway turbo charger that had to be attended to in seconds before cylinders started blowing off the engine. This would most likely happen on take off and was something to watch for.
One of the things that needed frequent monitoring was generator load. These were paralleled but now and then one would grab the load and the others go into bludge mode. During combat they were left to look after themselves as the F/E manned one of the guns. He also looked after fuel usage and distribution.
Good experienced crew members were in demand and mixed USAAF and RAAF crews operated out of the Northern Territory for some time due to shortages.

David

Building The B-24 Bomber During WWII "Story of Willow Run"
 

And if you like the B-24 and old pics from it in service check this site out. I always find it mind blowing the sheer amount of material pumped out of American factories to sustain the war effort around the globe during the Second World War. So grab a beverage, get comfortable and enjoy a nice collection of pics of Liberators.

https://b-24.weebly.com/

I have applied 24 Squadron RAAF markings to my 3/4 ton Dodge Command Car in memory of a long term friend who did a tour of duty as Flight Engineer on B24's mostly based at Fenton in the Northern Territory. (Australia).
On occasion he also flew with an American Bombardment Group. The Americans were short of some categories of air crew and he had a citation thanking him for his service with the USAAF.
For the significant part they played in service in the SW Pacific not much coverage is given the Liberators.
I remember him saying that at one point he was sent as part of a ferry crew to pick up a new B24 from Tocumwal. They were a little taken aback when they learned it was built by Ford. Not impressed by Ford products apparently and here they were expected to fly one into combat.
Lindsay was an interesting fellow to talk too as prior to retraining on B24's he had done a tour as F/E on Catalinas with No11 Squadron.

David

Willow Run, also known as Air Force Plant 31
 

As you can see I have merged all the threads on Ford's B24 bomber production posted over the years.

My contribution to this interesting topic is the picture below, showing that by size the B24 was the largest piece of war equipment manufactured by Ford. And Ford was the largest builder of B24's at 8,685 out of a total of approx. 18,500. Willow Run was the world's largest one-story war production plant, churning out an airplane every 63 minutes. Typical Ford manufacturing superlatives.

More superlatives: Ford used a special Twin V8 Tractor to haul 60-foot-long supertrailers, chock full of parts for the B-24 bomber.

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/at...9&d=1582751212
Source: Ford Model Designations