Project Warbird

06/19/2024

Part of doing restoration work is coming across challenges. With the Vultee BT13 project I had to get the bonding straps that go from the engine mount bolts to the engine mount replaited. They are copper with tin plating. I checked with a couple plating companies and it was going to be pretty expensive to do these few parts. So I ordered a kit and did it myself. I think for my first time electroplating anything them came out nice.

06/07/2024

Great day to spray some Poly-spary on the J-5 ailerons and door assembly. Also building up the rear seat for Jim Brown's SNJ-5.

05/06/2024

While in Colorado we found an interesting piece with a Consolidated part number. The design of the walkway was similar to what we had seen in the Consolidated B-24, so we acquired it and brought it back home.

Now we have positively identified this piece - it is an engine maintenance gangway for the PBY Catalina. Check out the attached photo - can you imagine!?

04/25/2024

Hey everyone. We are in need of 2 early Consolidated PBY control yokes. These are needed for LB-30 Maid of Athens. They used the same yokes. Here is a picture and the blueprint for them.

04/25/2024

Here is Gerad Blume's post about our visit to Wings Remembered Museum.

04/25/2024

Hi everyone, it’s been awhile since I have done an update. I’ve been busy doing phase inspections on a Falcon 20 and did a road trip to Colorado with Gerad Blume to pick up more parts for LB-30 Maid of Athens. That was a fun trip. We also had the opportunity to stop at B.A.S. parts sales LLC and do some digging for parts. I want to thank Geoff Watkins for letting us look around and purchase some parts. We did find a few parts for B-17 Lucky Thirteen. On our way back home we got to stop and visit Charles Runion at Wings Remembered Museum. Gerad Blume did a post about our visit and I will share that. I have also been working on more parts for the BT-13 project and the Boulton Paul top turret. I’m close to finishing up more Piper J-5 and SNJ-5 parts so I will have an update soon on those.

04/03/2024

Check out this YouTube video showing 1942 air operations in North Africa. There's a great shot of an RAF Consolidated LB.30 in there!

RAF and U.S .planes bombing and strafing in North African desert during WW2. Gun camera footage captures an actual RAF attack.

03/28/2024

Exciting news for Hangar Thirteen.

03/25/2024

Okay, this is a big one –

Consolidated LB.30/B-24 “Maid of Athens” now has a top turret.

Because “Maid of Athens” was an RAF heavy bomber, used by Great Britain prior to the US entry into the war, the turret is a British-made unit. This turret is a Boulton Paul Type A.

Some history –

Several nations experimented with the concept of a powered-turret but the first to actually put one into production was Great Britain, introducing the Boulton Paul Overstrand – a development of the 1926 Sidestrand – in 1935. The Sidestrand/Overstrand was Britain’s last biplane bomber and was surprisingly agile for its size, making it a natural testbed. Designed by John Dudley North, the turret took up the entirety of the aircraft’s nose, being pneumatically powered and carrying a single Lewis .303 machine gun. The change was dramatic. Overnight, the accuracy of RAF gunners in mock attacks increased from 15% to an incredible 55%.

Unfortunately, using compressed air (charged at 120 lbs/sq in) meant that there was always a possibility that the turret might lose pressure in midst of combat, requiring the turret to recharge before it could move again. The solution came from Archibald Frazer-Nash of Great Britain and J. B. Antoine de Boysson of France. Both engineers had experimented with hydraulic systems, with Frazer-Nash producing a hydraulic-shell to protect the gunners of Hawker Demons in 1935. De Boysson’s turret was more advanced. An engineer noted for his consultant work in Japan, de Boysson had grappled with these issues while designing French “battleplanes” (a concept promoted by Italian theorist BG Giulio Douhet). While working for the Société d’Appareils de Transmission in 1932, he patented a hydraulically-powered turret where the unit controlled not only the rotation of the guns, but the elevation as well. Setting up his own business (the Societe d’Applications des Machines Motrices), de Boysson licensed his turret to Boulton Paul of Great Britain in 1935, with some sources claiming he did so out of disgust after he was expected to bribe his way into a French contract. While Frazer-Nash’s design powered its hydraulics using the aircraft’s engines, de Boysson’s design was self-contained, using electric motors to power the turret’s hydraulic pumps. Both variants saw extensive use with the RAF, with Frazer-Nash first developing turrets for the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley and Vickers Wellington bombers and Boulton Paul for its Defiant fighter.

The United States did not mass-produce a powered turret for its bombers until after the outbreak of war in Europe. US Interwar bomber theory emphasized aircraft speed and altitude and what little research there was on the subject focused on electric remotes to cut down on weight and drag. With the early success in British turrets against German fighters in 1939-1940, the US implemented a crash program to develop locally-controlled powered turrets. Since Boulton Paul turrets could be swapped between aircraft, their designs heavily influenced US turrets. The Sperry Type A-1, developed for the Boeing B-17, for example, shares a great deal in common with the Boulton Paul Type A.

The Consolidated LB.30 – the prewar export version of the B-24 Liberator – was originally delivered without turrets. Spaces in the fuselage however were provided for the installation of a Boulton Paul Type A just behind the wing, and a Boulton Paul Type E in the tail.

Despite being used on multiple types of aircraft, the Boulton Paul Type A was most famously associated with the Boulton Paul Defiant, as it was designed around the turret. Since the Defiant was a failure in most respects, surviving examples of the Defiant and its turret are quite rare today. I can hardly over-emphasize the importance of acquiring this piece for “Maid of Athens.”

If you can help us restore this turret, in locating/referencing/donating parts or in technical references/blueprints, please let us know! It is our intention to restore this turret to full operating condition, if at all possible. Likewise, we still are on the lookout for a Type E turret for the LB.30’s tail position, so if you see one…

We hope that the restoration of “Maid of Athens” back to her wartime configuration honors those who served and stood firm in those dark early days of the Second World War.

Check out the photo descriptions to learn more.

Strike Hard, Strike Sure – Constant Endeavor

Project Warbird.

03/12/2024

Here is an update on a couple of our projects. I have started working on Vultee BT13 (41-11307). The plan is to start with everything firewall forward. I have finished the engine mount and all the bell crank assemblies. I have finished more of the fabric work on the Piper J-5 and have finished the other T-6 Texan cantilever leading edge assembly for Jim Brown.

03/04/2024

I'm happy to report that after 2 years in storage L-19 Birddog 11020 is back in the shop to finish its restoration. I want to thank Mike Clary from The Southern FAC museum for giving me a hand moving it.

02/26/2024

This week’s update on Consolidated LB.30 “Maid of Athens” is a long one, but I think you will understand why.

Recently we met Zachary Revay of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Zachary had posted some pieces on Facebook, unsure as to what they were. We recognized one of them right away - it was the belly hatch to a Consolidated B-24. Reaching out to him, Zachary was eager that said piece go to a good home, so Eric made the drive to Pittsburgh to meet him in person. While there, Eric was able to identify additional B-24 components for Zachary.

Thanks to Zachary, we were able to bring back for the project a “high hat” top turret dome, a nose turret plexiglass center section, a circular hatch window of unknown origin (with a Consolidated part number), and a B-24 belly hatch gun.

The high-hat dome was introduced as part of the Type A-3D Turret’s production run. The A-3 was one of several Army designations for the 250CE Upper Turret, originally designed by the Glenn L. Martin Co. for its B-26 Marauder. The Martin 250CE was easily the most successful powered gun turret in aviation history, seeing service on far more aircraft than originally intended. Users of the Martin 250CEt include the Consolidated B-24, Lockheed B-34/B-37, Consolidated B-32, Boeing YB-40, and Avro Lancaster Mk. X.

This dome is known as a “high hat” variant, entering service with the A-3D turret (the last of the A-3 series) in late-1944. As the name suggests, the high-hat dome is noticeably taller than its predecessors. The reason for this was the introduction of the Sperry Type K-13 Gunsight, an analog computer which compensated for bullet drift based on input of the guns’ direction (via tuning cables) and the user’s airspeed and altitude (via manual input).

This particular dome was manufactured by Reynolds Molded Plastics of Cambridge, Ohio and, despite a crack in the back, is in remarkable condition. Of particular interest is a decal from its original manufacturer, still legible after all these years.

The nose turret plexiglass center section comes from a Type A-15 Nose Turret built by Emerson Electric of St. Louis, Missouri.

Like the Boeing B-17, early B-24s carried very little forward-facing armament, the idea being that closing speeds at that angle would be too fast to be a threat. All three Axis powers were quick to exploit this weakness and BG Carl Connell of 5AF Service Command oversaw an experiment which mounted a Type A-6 Tail Turret into the nose a damaged B-24D. The success of this arrangement saw additional tests in the US, with the eventual development of a lighter, electric turret - the A-15 - to take its place. The demand for A-15 nose turrets was so high that, for a time, Emerson struggled to meet production quotas.

The belly hatch was typical of early B-24s, the aft fuselage entry doubling as a gun emplacement. For the LB.30, this mount held a .303 (typical of British aircraft) while the US used the .50 cal. As such, the only thing necessary to convert this piece to RAF standards is to replace the .50 cal ball with a .30/.303 ball. “Maid of Athens” will require some three .30/.303 ball mounts, though this one is the first of those needs (the other two were in the nose). Eric has already agreed to contribute the .50 cal ball in this mount to be used in the nose mount for Boeing B-17F “Lucky Thirteen,” but asks that the .30 cal ball need be handled first.

Surprisingly, the assembly has a clue which allows us to identify its origin. The no. 1885 is written on the side of the panel – the construction number for B-24D 42-40808. From what little we can find, this aircraft was based at Lincoln Field in Nebraska. On 30 May 1943, 1LT John R. Reeves suffered a taxi accident after a flight to Selfridge Field near Mount Clemens, Michigan which severely damaged 41-40808. With this accident being a Damage Code 4, meaning that 41-40808 was “Destroyed or In Need of Major Overhaul,” it seems likely that 41-40808 was scrapped. Reeves survived and served in the Pacific Theater, passing away in 2003 at the age of 84 in San Antonio, Texas.

The B-24 had a painful history regarding ventral defense. From the beginning, the belly hatch mount was viewed as little more than a ‘morale gun’ and the need for a powered turret was seriously hampered by the B-24’s low ground clearance. Starting with the 77th B-24D of the initial production block, Liberators were equipped with a Bendix-designed retractable remote, the turret being operated via a periscope within the aircraft. Like Sperry’s attempt at a remote with the Boeing B-17E, these turrets tended to cause vertigo and were difficult to operate, and after 287 more B-24Ds, were phased out entirely in favor of belly hatches altered to hold .50 caliber MGs. Adapting the Sperry A-2 Ball Turret, originally designed for the B-17, seemed the obvious solution, though creating an efficient retraction system took time. The resultant Type A-13 Ball entered service with block D-140-CO in the latter months of 1943.

Lastly, the circular hatch window is something of a mystery to us. The part number is definitely one from Consolidated Aircraft though it does not appear in any of our manuals. Said number is 32B21955. If anyone has any information to this piece, please let us know!

Aside from the belly hatch, which will definitely be restored, we intend to align the other turret components with the appropriate projects which need them. Hopefully this will help us in our quest to restore “Maid of Athens” to her RAF livery, which includes locating and restoring examples of her Boulton Paul Type A Upper and Type E Rear Turrets.

Check out the photo descriptions to learn more.

Strike Hard, Strike Sure – Constant Endeavor

Project Warbird.

02/16/2024

This week we have two major donations toward Consolidated LB.30/B-24 “Maid of Athens” to share -

First are a set of aileron gear boxes donated by Phillip Winstead of Lexington, Kentucky. These gears boxes are NOS, coming from the Ford's Willow Run facility near Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Ford’s foray into the aviation world was not a smooth one. In 1923, designer William Stout courted Henry Ford's investment by famously writing "For one thousand dollars you will get one definite promise: you will never get your money back." A publicity stunt designed to promote the Stout Metal Airplane Co. failed when, in 1925, the Stout Pullman lost winning the Edsel Ford Reliability Trophy to the Fokker Trimotor. This was countered after Ford's takeover of Stout with the Ford Trimotor in 1926, whose design was clearly based on Fokker's aircraft - so much so that copyright suits hampered attempts to sell the model in Europe. While the Ford Trimotor was wildly successful in the United States, the death of Ford pilot Harry Brooks in 1928 and the onset of the Great Depression the following year were serious blows. By the time the Boeing 247 and Douglas DC-2 entered service in 1933 and 1934 (respectively), Ford was hopefully outmatched, closing its aircraft division in 1936.

When the Consolidated B-24 entered mass production 1941, the US government established a “Liberator Production Pool,” supplementing Consolidated's plant in San Diego, California with a new one in Fort Worth, Texas, and Douglas's Long Beach plant with a new one in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ford was signed on to supply parts, though this expanded to include entire aircraft following the shrewd construction of the Willow Run plant. Willow Run was massive, covering 65 acres with some 3.5 million square feet of floor space. The entire facility was privately paid for and built on Ford-owned land, then sold to the US government.

Willow Run took Ford's famous 'assembly line' concept to the extreme, the only interruption being a 90-degree bend designed to avoid the facility from reaching over into the next county, whose tax bracket was higher. At its 1944 peak, the factory produced a new B-24 every 63 minutes. Unfortunately, this came with its own set of problems as Ford-built B-24s became notorious for their poor production quality. This was partially helped by a late-1943 government intervention which sought to sublet parts production so that Willow Run could focus solely on airframes. When the war ended, Ford passed on a potential buyback of the factory – building airplanes just wasn’t the same as cars.

These NOS gearboxes are incredible, and we are extremely thankful to Phillip for his contribution.

Next up is a Pilot’s Training Manual and Pilot’s Checklist from Scott Reed of Bolivar, Ohio. These pieces were used by his dad, Max Reed, during the war.

Researching Max Reed, it appears that he joined the Army on 6 November 1942 at age 19, re-upping for a second tour on 23 December 1944. I can find no information on his first tour, but on his second he completed twin-engine flight training at Moody Field near Valdosta, Georgia in December 1944. The following year he was assigned to the 461 Base Unit at Lemoore Field in California, flying Consolidated B-24s. This is undoubtedly where these books originated.

It is truly special to be trusted with such important pieces of family history. Thank you, Scott.

Check out the photo descriptions to learn more.

We have some super exciting updates coming up in the future, so keep a lookout!

Strike Hard, Strike Sure – Constant Endeavor

Project Warbird.

01/06/2024

Happy New Year everybody!

We have big hopes for Consolidated LB.30/B-24 “Maid of Athens” this year – after all, it is the year of the B-24…

December saw Eric make one his infamous cross-country expeditions, driving 2,260 miles from South Carolina to California. It was thanks to this trip that we now have one of the vertical stabilizers for “Maid of Athens.” This righthand stabilizer was acquired thanks to Bruce Orriss of the California Air Heritage Foundation, who had originally procured it for a contract restoration that never came to pass. While we have most of the airframe for “Maid of Athens,” some of the major missing components – like this one – are spread out amongst private collections who obtained them in the years following her crash-landing. It will take time to bring them all back into the fold.

Like the fuselage, the original colors on the stabilizer are still there, wearing the markings of the Morrison-Knudsen company. MK purchased “Maid of Athens” from the Greece’s national airline in 1951 and were responsible for the LB.30’s revised canopy and instrument panel (amongst other changes). MK was a massive civil engineering firm, and “Maid of Athens” was purchased in 1951 as part of their work on the Distant Early Warning Line.

The DEW Line was a product of the Cold War, acknowledging that the most likely Soviet approach for a nuclear strike would be through the Artic Circle. Originally, the US approached this problem via joint operations with Canada, establishing the pulse-Doppler radar PINETREE and Doppler bistatic radar Mid-Canada Line throughout the early-1950s. These systems suffered from severe handicaps, the former covering too small an area to react and the latter being susceptible to false alarms from birds and general aviation. The DEW line began development even before the previous two were completed, solving both problems by establishing a conventional radar net throughout the Aleutians, Canada, Greenland, and Iceland. It was supplying the construction of these sights, many of which were otherwise inaccessible, that “Maid of Athens” suffered her ultimate landing accident near Galena, Alaska in 1958.

We are proud of this part of the aircraft’s history. It really is astounding that this one airplane survives as an example of RAF Coastal Command’s part in the Battle of the Atlantic, the often-neglected war in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations, the foundation of the Greek airline industry, and the early years of the Cold War. There is even a suspicion that AL557 took part in the Berlin Airlift, which we are looking to confirm.

Another new acquisition, on a much smaller scale, are the formation lights for the LB.30. These lights are NOS, which is extremely fortunate, as used examples rarely include the original lenses. The LB.30/B-24 carried a total of seven of these blue lights, with four being mounted on the horizontal stabilizer and three on top of the aft fuselage. The LB.30's light configuration was massive, carrying two landing lights, six navigation lights, four recognition lights, two bomb release lights, and a passing light - not counting the seven formation lights.

Special thanks to Bruce Orriss for his help in returning the vertical stabilizer to “Maid of Athens.” !

Check out the photo descriptions to learn more.

Strike Hard, Strike Sure – Constant Endeavor

Project Warbird.

12/25/2023

Here at Project Warbird we would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.

11/22/2023

I realize that I have been harping on the importance of blueprints lately, but it is for a very good reason: to be accurate, we need as much reference material as possible.

As a case study, let us look at the pilot seats.

When we began this effort to rebuild Consolidated LB.30 “Maid of Athens,” we started by looking for the bomber’s pilot seats. We succeeded in locating two: one from our friend Hans Wuethrich in Switzerland – from whom we acquired several cockpit pieces – and the other from Patrick Mihalek of Sandbar Mitchell.

And after all that expense, we recently learned that the LB.30 did not use the same pilot seats as the B-24. Just like the yokes, the LB.30 used the same pilot seat as the PB2Y Coronado.

We did not have any blueprints to warn us. And while we located the LB.30’s parts catalog, we discovered said manual was actually a SPARE parts catalog, unillustrated and heavily redacted. If it were not for the images found in the hi-res manual scans from Patrick Hibbard, we may have never caught the discrepancy. (I should note that the same few interior shots we constantly show came from these scans.)

I have already mentioned the issue with the Smithsonian regarding blueprints. We have not heard a word from them since our last post. Chris Aldridge of the Yankee Air Museum recommended we check with the National Archives, who have US Navy records on the PB4Y Privateer. Their response was to acknowledge that they have PB4Y-1 and PB4Y-2 drawings, but nothing on the LB.30. However, they require written permission from the current incarnation of Consolidated (in this case, Boeing) before they can be photographed or copied.

Chris has some microfilm of the B-24’s prints, and we are hoping that he can help us out – as there may not be anyone else who can.

Because of the close relationship the LB.30 has with components of the PB2Y Coronado, we also reached out to the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. While their restoration staff were kind enough to offer us to visit, the team responsible for their Coronado have all moved on. As such, they have little material insight to offer.

Still, we move forward.

If anyone has blueprints related to the Consolidated B-24 family – no matter how small – please let us know! Likewise, we must ask our friends across the pond to look out for reference material, particularly photographs of the LB.30 in service. Interior shots are particularly of interest, as there are multiple areas that the manuals do not show.

Ironically, despite being the most mass produced heavy bomber in history, there are far fewer interior shots of the B-24 than of the Boeing B-17, regardless of variant.

Check out the photo descriptions for more details and updates.

Strike Hard, Strike Sure – Constant Endeavor

Project Warbird.

11/06/2023

This week’s update features an incredible donation from our friend Nick Veronico. Nick has contributed a set of five glass panels for the LB.30’s cockpit. Thanks Nick!

The cockpit and nose of the Consolidated B-24 featured a unique greenhouse design, framing these areas in a series of crisscrossing beams. Originally, the LB.30 had a rather short nose section, as the bombardier did not share his compartment with the navigator in early B-24s. This was changed with the LB.30 Liberator II, which saw the nose extended three feet – purely for aesthetic reasons. One of the results of this was an altered nose glazing, as the original greenhouse nose laid flat against the forwardmost bulkhead, while the revised nose cut into the lower part of the forward bulkhead.

Since “Maid of Athens” is a LB.30 Liberator II, this means that she carried the latter nose variant, a type commonly associated with the familiar D-model B-24.

The greenhouse nose and canopy were not particularly popular. The nose was later eliminated after the introduction of nose-turret equipped B-24s, but it was not until the end of the war that a revised canopy was introduced. While these canopies did not see much service, a similar modification saw use on those few B-24s and PB4Ys which saw civilian usage in the postwar years. For this reason, there are multiple B-24s today alongside ourselves who are in need of the older birdcage canopy.

As mentioned multiple times, we are deeply in need of the B-24’s original blueprints. From our research, it appears that we are not alone in this quest. Since our last post we have confirmed that copies still exist in the Smithsonian’s archives. However, there are multiple problems with these copies.

These prints are kept on microfilm and the Smithsonian has, for the past few years, ceased services which duplicate microfilm. Apparently, they once used a third party for this task, but when their old contact damaged a roll, they terminated the practice. There have been efforts to convince them to resume duplication services via other contractors, but the archives have been slow to act.

In the meantime, the only way to get copies is to have them physically printed. The issue there is that the Smithsonian has a strict annual allotment policy, after which we would have to wait a year before ordering another batch. This would require us printing a mere 25 blueprint pages per year.

The ultimate solution would be to have the prints digitized. Thus far, such a service has not been given by the Smithsonian. As such, if were able to obtain rolls from them, not only would we have to pay the cost for having them copied, but we would also have to pay another service to have them digitized. And once this extremely expensive process is completed, we would not be allowed to openly share them due to Smithsonian regulation.

So, we keep looking. If B-24 prints could be located elsewhere, there is the potential they might be more helpful to projects such as ourselves.

Consider the possibility. “Maid of Athens” needs a new greenhouse nose and cockpit canopy, the latter of which is needed by multiple B-24 projects. There are a few B-24 nose sections on display at various museums, but is doubtful that any one of them would consider parting with their displays so that they could be put toward “Maid of Athens.” However, if we had the necessary references, we could not only work to replace these nose and canopy on the LB.30, but we could help other projects who need them as well. We just need the references.

Check out the photo descriptions to learn more about our recent work on Consolidated LB.30 Liberator II “Maid of Athens.”

Strike Hard, Strike Sure – Constant Endeavor

Project Warbird.

10/24/2023

Hey gang,

My apologies for the long update hiatus. The past couple weeks have been busy between work and a family health scare – but now I’m back and trying to return to my normal routine. Throughout this period, there have been some incredible advances made on Consolidated LB.30 “Maid of Athens.”

First up is the arrival of the aircraft’s second TA-12-C Transmitter.

As noted before, Lend-Lease aircraft were largely outfitted with radio and navigation equipment purchased ‘off-the-shelf’ from Bendix of New Jersey. This was the case for the LB.30. The radio operator sat at a desk behind the co-pilot, facing forward, his radio complement stacked on a nearby shelf assembly.

The standard setup for large aircraft was a pair of TA-12Cs transmitters, which covered a frequency range of 300-600 KC and 3,000-1,200 KC via four channels. The units were externally powered by a pair of MP-28-Bs and a single RA-10DB acted as the aircraft’s primary receiver. With this piece we now have both of the aircraft’s primary transmitters.

Another major arrival is the aircraft’s bombsight: the Mk. IX.

The Mk. IX was the last and most produced variant of the British Course Setting Bomb Sight (CSBS), first developed by Harry E. Wimperis and Frederick W. Scarff in 1918. (Wimperis is today best remembered for his part in creating early-warning radar and Scarff for the invention of the ‘Scarff ring’ manual gun turret.) Various improvements of this design saw service throughout the Interwar Years and the CSBS remained the world standard at the outset of World War II.

Like most bombsights, the Mk. IX is a complex piece of equipment consisting of a series of manual computers, with the data inputs adjusting the various slide-rulers and indicators in turn. Rather than simply calculating the drop point, the CSBS also allowed for wind drift – provided the aircraft remained stable. It was for this last point that Mk. IX was later replaced by MK. XIV and Norden M-9.

Many are surprised to learn that the LB.30 did not carry a Norden and its associated autopilot systems. This is because the Norden bombsight was never released to Great Britain under Lend-Lease. Since the Norden was originally developed for the US Navy, the sight was technically property of the USN Bureau of Aeronautics. This meant that even US Army Air Corps stocks were secondary to the Navy’s needs. Throughout 1938-1939, repeated attempts to placate the Navy via exchanges of powered turret and radar technology got nowhere, the concern being that the sight’s design might fall into enemy hands.

A 1943 scandal revealed the Navy had stockpiled a surplus of Nordens, the fallout of which switched priority to the Army. By this time, the British were fully committed to a night campaign and no longer needed the Norden. While the LB.30’s manual calls for the installation of a Sperry Type O-1, photos of LB.30s in service show them equipped with Mk. IX sights.

Lastly, we would like to an extend an invitation to all our supporters. The LB.30 is a rather unique piece of history and we want to do justice to the story of Lend-Lease and the Liberators which closed the Atlantic gap. If you have any pieces/components, or any drawings/manuals/photos which may aid in our effort, and would like to contribute, please let us know!

Sometimes you might be surprised what parts “Maid of Athens” can use – did you know that the LB.30 used the same yokes as the PBY Catalina? They even used the same engines!

Strike Hard, Strike Sure – Constant Endeavor

Project Warbird.