Wondering about the C-87 (I think often grouped here as B-24) losses at Canton, particularly the one that hit the drink on approach. I saw a reference to an accident report in Tighar's possession (
http://tighar.org/wiki/Kanton_(Canton)_Island) - is this posted anywhere or otherwise available?
Here's where I'm going with this:
- B-24 skin diagram posted earlier by Mark Pearce showed areas of 0.032 skin in certain areas
including immediately aft of wings
- C-87 being a modified B-24 (modified not quite the right word as I think most were built as C-87 from the get go
on the same assembly line, not conversion of bomber post production) can we assume skin details to be similar?
Any way to document?, couldn't find any record of surviving air frames
- B-24's seem to be noted as likely to break apart in a predictable pattern notably immediately aft of the wings
in shall we say off-nominal landings/ditchings (ie Atka Island, Lady Be Good)
- If the C-87 broke up in the usual fashion, could the now exposed interior side of a section of 0.032 skin be exposed
to hydraulic forces (ie impact with water) that might provide similar features to 2-2-v-1?
- Accident report may note note how/if plane broke up
- Not sure about bouyancy but if there were attached empty o2 tanks in the area as in a B-24 or other floatables, who
knows what was recovered when the survivors were picked up or what washed ashore later...
- Do we have any skin/rivet info for B-24/C-87 that would rule out? Pictures seem to indicate all sorts of different rivet sizes and styles with some appearing close in general layout but of course no reference scale and without consideration to photo distortion.
Whether or not the above is deemed to have any weight, very good detail of a couple B-24 models here for general interest and worth a look:
Good resolution exterior photos
http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/mark_hayward/b-24m_liberator/index.php?Page=4Internal panoramic views at various stations (very cool)
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=494note labelled 0.032 skin at radio operator station (replacement skin I assume)
Another B-24 thing...found one reference (
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/VII/AAF-VII-7.html) talking about replacement horizontal stabilizers being brought in (Port Moresby so not to Canton specifically) after a number of failures. Do we know any further details of this apparent stabilizer problem and if there might have been a lot of discarded stabilizers lying around, maybe even on Canton. At least could be eliminated as a possibility if skin guage, rivet details dont work