COBI Consolidated B-24 Liberator Set 5739

COBI's Consolidated B-24 Liberator is a 1:48 model built from 1,445 blocks, 45 cm long with a 68.5 cm wingspan, in the markings of the aircraft named Axis Nightmare with its grim reaper emblem — a B-24D lost in the Pacific in February 1945. The propellers, ailerons and bomb bay doors move, and two pilot figures printed front and back are included. New brick shapes were made for the glazed nose. No stickers.

More were built than any other American aircraft, ever

Over 18,000 B-24s were made — more than the B-17, more than any other American military aircraft in history, before or since. And almost nobody outside aviation has heard of it, while everybody knows the Flying Fortress.

Part of the reason is that the B-24 was less pleasant to be in. The Davis wing that gave it superb range and load was long, narrow and mounted high, which made the aircraft efficient and unforgiving: heavy on the controls, hard to hold in formation for hours, and prone to structural failure if it took the kind of damage a B-17 shrugged off. Crews said a Fortress would bring you home and a Liberator would get you there.

Ditching one was worse. The high wing meant the fuselage hit the water first and the bomb bay doors, which rolled up like a tambour, collapsed immediately — a B-24 could break up and sink in under a minute.

What it did have was reach. The B-24 flew the long-range patrols that closed the mid-Atlantic gap where U-boats had been safe from aircraft, and that contribution to the Battle of the Atlantic outweighs anything it did over Germany.

Specifications

Pieces: 1,445 · Figures: 2 pilots · Scale: 1:48 · No stickers
Model dimensions: 45 × 68.5 × 13 cm (17.7 × 27.0 × 5.1 in)