Lancaster Vs. B-24

and you say you work at this company making stalites?

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you mean satellites?

have you ever actually put anything together in your life?

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Ummmm..... actually I have. In factoroies, customer sites and labs, for almost twice the number of years as you have been alive

i'm a farmer's son, what does that mean? it means i've worked around machinery, now i'm not saying i know as much about machinery about many of the other members, but i'm 15 and i can tell you that when making anything with machinery you HAVE to be precise, even working on farm machines, if you make a mistake, it aint gonna go, so don't say that standards were lower during the war, because you can't skimp...........

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As in any manufactored product, some parts are precision built to high tolerances, some to wide tolerances. If youve ever bothered to look at a blueprint you will see the classic symbol next to a measurement "+/- .00x"
In WW2, production was paramount, and those designs that had a minimum of pecision built componants usually got built en mass.

Good points there guys! It's a lot easier to build single engine fighters under conventional assembly methods as opposed to multi engine aircraft. Speaking in WW2 standards, larger multi engine aircraft were a lot more complicated than single engine fighters. Besides your normal engine and flight controls multiplied by 4, you had tons of electrical wiring and hydraulic lines for gun turrets, electronic provisions, and other items like Syncrophasers (someone ask what this is and I'll tell you). Saying that building 4 single engine fighters is like building one 4 engine bomber is ridiculous, it's like saying 4 motorcycles make a car!!!

syscom3 said:

As in any manufactored product, some parts are precision built to high tolerances, some to wide tolerances. If youve ever bothered to look at a blueprint you will see the classic symbol next to a measurement "+/- .00x"
In WW2, production was paramount, and those designs that had a minimum of pecision built componants usually got built en mass.

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Actually the "classic" tolerance was and is as follows....

.XXX - +/- .003
.XX - +/- .010

For highly precision parts you'll see tolernce four places.

A Syncrophaser ensures the props spin at the same RPM. Besides making them sound better, it might also have something to do with minimizing low frequency resonance that might be coupled to the airframe. Perhaps it also slightly increases aircraft performance by eliminating asynmetric thrust angles?

For production purposes, one heavy bomber = four fighters.

syscom3 said:

A Syncrophaser ensures the props spin at the same RPM. Besides making them sound better, it might also have something to do with minimizing low frequency resonance that might be coupled to the airframe. Perhaps it also slightly increases aircraft performance by eliminating asynmetric thrust angles?

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Very good, perhaps striaght from a Ham Standard site...
The amount of wiring for those probably could wire 8 single seat fighters.

syscom3 said:

For production purposes, one heavy bomber = four fighters.

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You're on drugs! OK - 4 P-38s make a B-36?!?!?

Hes not on drugs, he just lives in a world of illusions and has no clue about aircraft production.

sys go back to my example, one bog standarn single engined fighter, in this case a standard Spitfire Mk.IX, empty weight 5,634lbs, that means there's 5,634lbs of materials going into a single plane, so the engine, all the wiring and skins, tanks, everything...........

so, if a single four engined bomber is the equivilant of 4 single engined fighters, logically it should weigh four times as much, as there will be four times the ammount of material gone into it? correct? no, an empty lanc weighed about 6.5 times more than an empty spit, thats 14,275lbs of extra material gone into the lanc, that extra weight isn't going to produce itself, it takes more time to produce and install that extra material!

There were no definitions of synchrophasers I could find, so I deduced what it was from some bits of information from synchrophasers that were for sale.

Besides, the root words indicate that it has something to do with "same phase".

Lanc, just for you, one spit = 6.5 bombers. In a macro economic sense, its irrelevant.

There's a great movie clip that shows P-51 production at NAs old LAX facility. It shows one guy "mating" wing halves on an assembly line, actually bolting them together. Later in the clip it shows much of the final assembly which looked more like an automotive production. Little production tooling was utilized at this stage of production, it seems all the components that were jig built were completed as large sub assemblies that needed little or no special tooling for assembly. Most WW2 fighters I've seen up close and personal seem to be assembled this way.

Now let's talk big planes (Listen Up Syscom). From your B-17 to B-24 through your B-52 and modern airliners, putting the wings on was done at an assembly "segment" or "station" called "Wingmate," pretty much common through-out the aircraft industry. At that point the wings were joined to the fuselage using tooling that usually set the wing into splice plates that were already installed on the aircraft fuselages. This had to be done with care and precision to ensure things weren't going together crooked. On the B-17 there also was a large fitting that incorporated 2 high strength bolts (upper and lower)

Here's a photo of a B-17 fuselage on a crane, the lower and upper portions of the wing rib profile is where the splice plate would be.


Here a B-17 Right wing (upside down)


Here's the wing mate station, if you look closely you could see the special dollies supporting the wings as they go together....


Once at wing mate dozens of high tolerance holes were drilled through the splice plates for close tolerance "Hi Locs" or "Hi Shear" pins cold be installed. These are close tolerance steel pins that are installed similar to a rivet but they have a threaded stem. A nut is screwed on and when seated an upper portion "snaps" off ensuring proper torque and semi-permanent installation (these could be removed but it could be real tough.)

The complexity of this assembly is ten fold when compared to a single engine fighter. The B-24 employed a similar installation but the wings were first joined to a "Stub Wing" and then assembled to the rest of the fuselage.



Here's a crashed B-24 wing. The blue and red things that look like nuts are hi-loc or hi-shear collars


This one tore away inboard from its splice plane, note the sheared wing spar.

Here's the P-51 wingmate - notice no jigs or platforms needed for this operation.

Part 2....



There you have it - there's a lot more involved, systems, assembly, operationally, and maintainability-wise when comparing a WW2 bomber to a fighter, and I just scratched the surface, I didn't go into radios, radar, bombsights etc. To say 4 fighters equal one 4 engine bomber is a simplistic way of looking at the picture based on size, it reminds me of the old skit when a boss question his workers - "How long does it take to get that thing built." The worker answers "It takes 3 guys 4 days to complete the job." Then the boss tells his worker, "Get 12 guys on it and complete it in a day."

I actually saw that kind of mentality at McDonnell Douglas and on the L1011 production line while at Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas drifted into oblivion and then was swallowed up by the competition (Boeing) and the L1011 was a financial disaster...

So tell me Sys, are you a Boss?!?!

It will take a few more hours as they need lunch and restroom breaks.

Back in the 80's at Chino, they had their newly aquired P38 on display "in pieces". The center section where the wings attached looked really complex to produce. It looked like they needed some huge pins to pound in to hold the thing together.

I remember they had some ex P38 mechanics and assemblers there to help show them how things fitted during assembly.

syscom3 said:

It will take a few more hours as they need lunch and restroom breaks.

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syscom3 said:

Back in the 80's at Chino, they had their newly aquired P38 on display "in pieces". The center section where the wings attached looked really complex to produce. It looked like they needed some huge pins to pound in to hold the thing together.

I remember they had some ex P38 mechanics and assemblers there to help show them how things fitted during assembly.

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I heard from guys I worked with at Lockheed who was on ythe P-38 assembly line that it was a hard aircraft to produce, but eventually methods were developed to make things easier. These guys I worked with told me that never thought they'd produce more than 100 P-38s. Lockheed actually hired midgets to assemble the tail assemblies and paid them top dollar....

Lockheed ran 3 lines at Plant B-1 (which was located at the end of Van Owen Street in Burbank) and eventually moved a line in Building 304, Plant B-6, which was just east of the new contol tower.

From Lockheed...

I think the anticipated order size of the original P-38 contract was 66 planes so they were designed to be more or less hand built.

wmaxt

Yep!!!

Good info up there FBJ. Basically that same concept is still how they make planes today (as you are full aware of). The technology changes but the concept is the same. I was looking at that crashed B-24 wing and realized how much that looks like my aircraft. Hi-locs and all.

Thanks Adler - the only "jump" from WW2 to today is composites, and even in an "all plastic plane" (ie the B-2) you still have Hi-locs and cherry max rivets all over the place.

I'm hoping to post some more numbers here within the next few days to get this topic back on track....

Good info FBJ.

Gnomey said:

Good info FBJ.

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It sure is. Great stuff.

I put together some numbers with a Lanc B.1 challenging a B-24J. Some of the numbers were extracted from various Internet sites and the Lancaster POH. When I did some calculations and conversions, some of the final results were quite interesting. If any one has anything to add or if there is an error here, let me know. Looking at this as a pilot, the Lanc had a heavier bomb load and way better power loading, and a lower stall and landing speed in all configurations. The B-24 was slightly faster, flew higher, and had a better rate of climb. If I had my choice, I'd take the Lancaster based on performance, I'd take the B-24 on armament and operational safety (2nd pilot). Over all, I think the Lancaster is still the superior bomber aircraft based on its ability to carry bombs to a target, its ability to house numerous electronic aids, its ability to be modified and finally its longevity. Keep in mind, this is a comparison of an early Lanc to a late model B-24!!!

Sorry for the small text, it was the only way I could get all the data on the sheet and then be able to post....

Great data.

Still a tie for me. The Lancs superior range and payload offset by the B24's better defensive armorment and two pilot setup.