B-24D FORMATING MONITOR 1/72 Hasegawa 00932

B-24D "FORMATING MONITOR" 
1/72   Aircrafts, Planes
Hasegawa 00932

Manufacturer: Hasegawa
Scale: 1/72
Material: Plastic
Paint: Unpainted, Unassembled, Kit do not contain paints and glue.
Condition: New in Box

The Consolidated B-24 Liberator was an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and a small number of early models were sold under the name LB-30, for Land Bomber. The B-24 was used in World War II by several Allied air forces and navies, and by every branch of the American armed forces during the war, attaining a distinguished war record with its operations in the Western European,Pacific, Mediterranean, and China-Burma-India Theaters.

Often compared with the better-known Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-24 was a more modern design with a higher top speed, greater range, and a heavier bomb load; it was also more difficult to fly, with heavy control forces and poor formation-flying characteristics. Popular opinion among aircrews and general staffs tended to favor the B-17's rugged qualities above all other considerations in the European Theater.The placement of the B-24's fuel tanks throughout the upper fuselage and its lightweight construction, designed to increase range and optimize assembly line production, made the aircraft vulnerable to battle damage. The B-24 was notorious among American aircrews for its tendency to catch fire. Its high fuselage-mounted "Davis wing" also meant it was dangerous to ditch or belly land, since the fuselage tended to break apart.The B-24's most costly mission was the low-level strike against the PloieÈ™ti oil fields, in Romania on 1 August 1943, which turned into a disaster because the defense was underestimated, fully alerted and attackers disorganized.The Liberator originated from a United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) request in 1938 for Consolidated to produce the B-17 under license. After company executives including President Reuben Fleet visited the Boeing factory in Seattle, Washington, Consolidated decided instead to submit a more modern design of its own.The new Model 32 combined the Davis wing, a high-efficiency airfoil design created by unorthodox means by a lone inventor named David Davis,with the twin taildesign from the Consolidated Model 31 flying boat, both mated together on a new fuselage. This new fuselage was intentionally designed around the twin bomb bays, each one being the same size and capacity of the B-17's.Consolidated finished the prototype, by then known as the XB-24, and had it ready for its first flight two days before the end of 1939. After initial testing, the XB-24 was found to be deficient in several areas. One major failure of the prototype was that it failed to meet the top speed requirements specified in the contract. As built, the XB-24 top speed was only 273 mph instead of the specified 311 mph. As a result, the mechanically supercharged Pratt & Whitney R-1830-33s were replaced with the turbo-supercharged R-1830s. Additionally, the tail span was widened by 2 feet (0.61 m) and the pitot-static probeswere relocated from the wings to the fuselage. The XB-24 was then re-designated XB-24B—these changes became standard on all B-24's built starting with the B-24C model.

B-24 Liberator
United States Army Air Forces Consolidated B-24D Liberator over Maxwell Field, Alabama.
Role	Heavy bomber
Manufacturer	Consolidated Aircraft
First flight	29 December 1939
Introduction	1941
Retired	1968 (Indian Air Force)
Primary users	United States Army Air Forces United States Navy Royal Air Force Royal Canadian Air Force
Produced	1940–1945
Number built	18,482