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

[motto (RIP)]

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

David

[bill m]

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.

[cletrac (RIP)]

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

[Lang]

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.

[motto (RIP)]

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