Editing Consolidated B-24 Liberator (section)

==Production==
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Approximately 18,500 B-24s were produced across a number of versions, including over 4,600 manufactured by [[Ford Motor Company|Ford]]. It holds records as the world's most-produced bomber, heavy bomber, multi-engine aircraft, and American military aircraft in history.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ndt0h2LHETAC|title=The Liberator Legend: The Plane and the People|last=St. John|first=Philip A.|date=1990|publisher=Turner Publishing Company|isbn=978-0-938021-99-5|page=10|language=en}}</ref> Production took place at five plants. At Ford's [[Ypsilanti, Michigan]] based [[Willow Run]] Bomber plant alone, one B-24 was being produced every 59 minutes at its peak, a rate so large that production exceeded the military's ability to use the aircraft. Such were the production numbers it has been said that more aluminum, aircrew, and effort went into the B-24 than any other aircraft in history.<ref>{{cite book | last = Johnsen | first = Frederick | title = Consolidated B-24 Liberator – Warbird Tech Vol. 1 | publisher = Specialty Press | date = 1996 | isbn = 978-1580070546}}</ref>
[[File:Looking up one of the assembly lines at Ford's big Willow Run plant, where B-24E (Liberator) bombers are being made... - NARA - 196389.jpg|thumb|Looking up one of the assembly lines at Ford's big Willow Run plant, where B-24E (Liberator) bombers are being made]]
Continued development work by Consolidated produced a handful of transitional B-24Cs with turbocharged instead of supercharged engines. The turbocharged engines were the reason for the flattened oval shape of the nacelles that distinguished all subsequent Liberator models.

The B-24D was the first mass-produced series. The B-24D was the Liberator III in British service. It entered US service in early 1942. It had turbocharged engines and increased fuel capacity. Three more 0.50 caliber (12.7&nbsp;mm) machine guns brought the defensive armament up to 10 machine guns. At {{convert|59524|lb|kg}}{{dubious|date=April 2018}} (29.76 short tons) maximum takeoff weight, it was one of the heaviest aircraft in the world; comparable with the British "heavies", with fully loaded weights of 30 short tons for (and nearly identical to) the [[Short Stirling#Specifications (Short Stirling I)|Stirling]], the 34 short ton [[Avro Lancaster#Specifications (Lancaster I)|Lancaster]] and the 27 short ton [[Handley Page Halifax#Specifications (Mk III)|Halifax]].

[[File:Consolidated B-24J Liberators under construction at the Consolidated-Vultee plant in San Diego, CA, 1944.jpg|thumb|B-24s under construction at Ford Motor's [[Willow Run]] plant]]
Production of B-24s increased at an astonishing rate throughout 1942 and 1943. Consolidated Aircraft tripled the size of its plant in [[San Diego]] and built a large new plant outside [[Carswell Air Force Base|Fort Worth, Texas]] in order to receive the massive amounts of knock-down kits that the Ford Motor Company shipped via truck from its Ypsilanti Michigan Facility.{{Citation needed|date=September 2018}} A new government plant was built in [[Tulsa, Oklahoma]] with [[Reconstruction Finance Corporation]] funds and leased to [[Douglas Aircraft Company|Douglas Aircraft]] for assembly of B-24s from Ford parts;<ref>Francillon 1988, p.26</ref> Douglas ultimately built a total of 962 of the D, E, H, and J models there.<ref>Francillon 1988, p.580</ref> [[Bell Aircraft]] built the B-24 under license at a factory near [[Marietta, Georgia]], just northwest of [[Atlanta]]. Online by mid-1943, the new plant produced hundreds of B-24 Liberator bombers.<ref name="weaponsacquisitionprocess">[[Whiz Kids (Department of Defense)|Peck, Merton J.]] & [[Frederic M. Scherer|Scherer, Frederic M.]] ''The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis'' (1962) [[Harvard Business School]] p.619</ref> The aircraft was also built at [[North American Aviation|North American]] plant B in the city of [[Grand Prairie, Texas]] having only starting production of the B-24G in 1943.{{Citation needed|date=December 2009}} None of these were minor operations, but they were dwarfed by Ford's vast new purpose-built factory constructed at Willow Run near [[Detroit]], Michigan.

According to the Willow Run Reference Book published 1 February 1945, Ford broke ground on Willow Run on 18 April 1941, with the first plane coming off the line on 10 September 1942. Willow Run had the largest assembly line in the world ({{convert|3500000|ft2|m2|abbr=on|disp=semicolon}}). At its peak in 1944, the Willow Run plant produced one B-24 per hour and 650 B-24s per month.<ref name="Willowrun">Nolan, Jenny. [http://info.detnews.com/redesign/history/story/historytemplate.cfm?id=73&category=locations "Michigan History: Willow Run and the Arsenal of Democracy."] {{webarchive |url=https://archive.today/20121204140927/http://info.detnews.com/redesign/history/story/historytemplate.cfm?id=73&category=locations |date=4 December 2012 }} ''The Detroit News'', 28 January 1997. Retrieved: 7 August 2010.</ref> In mid-1944, the production of the B-24 was consolidated from several different companies (including some in Texas) to two large factories: the Consolidated Aircraft Company in [[San Diego, CA|San Diego]] and the Ford Motor Company's factory in Willow Run, near Detroit, Michigan, which had been specially designed to produce B-24s.<ref name="weaponsacquisitionprocess" /> By 1945, Ford made 70% of all B-24s in two nine-hour shifts. Pilots and crews slept on 1,300 cots at Willow Run waiting for their B-24s to roll off the assembly line. At Willow Run, Ford produced half of 18,000 total B-24s alone.<ref name="Willowrun"/> Up into December 1944, Ford had also produced an additional 7242 KD or 'Knock Down' Kits that would be trucked to and assembled by Consolidated in Ft. Worth and Douglas Aircraft in Tulsa. Each of the B-24 factories was identified with a production code suffix: Consolidated/San Diego, CO; Consolidated/Fort Worth, CF; Ford/Willow Run, FO; North American, NT; and Douglas/Tulsa, DT.

[[File:B-24 300-239.jpg|thumb|[[Women Airforce Service Pilots|WASP]] pilots (left to right) Eloise Huffines Bailey, Millie Davidson Dalrymple, Elizabeth McKethan Magid and Clara Jo Marsh Stember, with a B-24 in the background]]
In 1943, the model of Liberator considered by many the "definitive" version was introduced. The B-24H was {{convert|10|in|cm}} longer, had a powered gun turret in the upper nose to reduce vulnerability to head-on attack, and was fitted with an improved bomb sight (behind a simpler, three-panel glazed lower nose), autopilot, and fuel transfer system. Consolidated, Douglas and Ford all manufactured the B-24H, while North American made the slightly different B-24G. All five plants switched over to the almost identical B-24J in August 1943. The later B-24L and B-24M were lighter-weight versions and differed mainly in defensive armament.{{Citation needed|date=December 2009}}

As the war progressed, the complexity of servicing the Liberator continued to increase. The B-24 variants made by each company differed slightly, so repair depots had to stock many different parts to support various models. Fortunately, this problem was eased in the summer of 1944, when North American, Douglas and Consolidated Aircraft at Fort Worth stopped making B-24s, leaving only the Consolidated plant in San Diego and the Ford plant in Willow Run.{{Citation needed|date=December 2009}}

In all, 18,482 B-24s were built by September 1945. Twelve thousand saw service with the USAAF, with a peak inventory in September 1944 of 6,043. The U.S. Navy received 977 PB4Y-1s (Liberators originally ordered by the USAAF) and 739 [[PB4Y Privateer|PB4Y-2 Privateers]], derived from the B-24. The Royal Air Force received about 2,100 B-24s equipping 46 bomber groups and 41 squadrons; the Royal Canadian Air Force 1,200 B-24Js; and the Royal Australian Air Force 287 B-24Js, B-24Ls, and B-24Ms. Liberators were the only heavy bomber flown by the RAAF in the Pacific.{{Citation needed|date=May 2021}}