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Accuracy
".... most Americans will not accept that the British built a better bomber."
On long over-water hauls, the Lib would be a much more 'luxurious' plane to fly than the Lanc. There's 2 questions: better plane?, and, better bomber?
I would not want to fly Lancs on daylight missions against air defense. But they brought their crews back from nights ops the way B-17's did from daylight runs.
MM
BTW I am an American who accepts the British made a bomber that all things considered was equal to and possibly superior to the B-17 and B-24.
".... but why do you think the B-24 would be more luxurious than the Lanc."
My uncle's view (as a Canadian former WW1 pilot and civilian Ferry Cmd pilot) was that British cockpits compared to American cockpits were "spartan" to say the least. He flew Libs, B-25's, PBY Catalinas, Ansons in his civilian role.
I don't doubt that the Lanc was a sweet machine to fly - powerful, strong and responsive [like the Spitfire]. But - on the flights across the South Atlantic to Africa ... the Lib was spacious and easy for pilots to swap chairs ...
The Lanc, on the otherhand, is like this:
B-24 flight deck view:
Such luxury in the American cabin.
Nevertheless, the Lancaster could still carry a greater bomb load than any American bomber and that is more important surely...
Not more than the B-29...
Why did the USAAF choose to fly during daylight?
I have never really understood that choice.
Was it supreme belief in the Flying Fortresses?
Cheers
John
They also tried it with P-38's.Was the B-24 the effective USAAF bomber for the Ploesti oil strikes? Besides range - what did it have going for it? - it can't have been intuitive to fly at those low altitudes. Would the B-17 have been a better low altitude platform - even if that meant a very small payload and more gas in bladders?
MM
People keep saying the B24 flew higher than the B17. I strongly question that. I looked on a website about a bomb group that flew B24s and if memory serves, the highest altitude a mission was flown at was 25000 feet and a good many were flown below 20000 feet. On a B17 website, quite a few missions were flown at 28-29000 feet. I also remember reading a book where when mixed missions were flown, the B24s always flew lower than the B17s The B17 had a service ceiling of 35000 feet and the B24, 28000 feet. My belief is that those service ceilings were established with a normal load. In an overload situation which was probably most of the time, neither plane could get near that service ceiling. That meant that a B24 was really beginning to labor at and maybe could not even get to 25-26000 feet. I also read that the B24 and B17 were not very compatible when flying on the same mission because of those different altitude capabilites and different crusing speeds. The B24 cruised faster, I think.