John lied...

I wonder if we'll even get one with a faired-over nose, to put the Prime Minister in...
 
LB-30 AL504 "Commando", VIP transport for the Prime Minister. Lost over Atlantic between Azores and Ottawa Mar 27, 1945. The Prime Minister was not onboard.

( from http://rafb24.com/ )

Other than one of the unfaired nose - new to me! - I can only find photos from after it's conversion to single tailfin, but it'll give you an idea of how it looked. The other one is the same type, but ex-BOAC. There's also a useful overhead shot that shows the shorter nose of the French-ordered Liberator II. Incidentally, the first member of the Royal Family to fly the Atlantic wasthe Duke of Kent, who flew to Canada on 28th July 1941 on LB-30A Liberator AM261, the same type as AL504. Scan coming up.
 
Ted, here is a quick peek at the new Leigh Light mounted on our test mule B-25.

The Leigh Light will be pilot controlled as per the model design you are doing. When the player activates the Leigh Light switch it will turn on the light with a bright orb and halo on the aircraft and will also turn on the new radium coated combat instrument and cockpit lights. The Leigh Light will stay on for 5 minutes after the pilot activates it and then will self extinguish, we don't want the boys flying home with a lighted aircraft. The light an be reactivated at any time by hitting the light switch again.

Player will locate targets initially by radar(Tac) then turn on the Leigh Light for his bomb run at any speed or altitude selected.

Beta # 2 going out to the test guys today.

Steve
 
faired version

Well, I think that will be a back burner item. It would require new engines and the fairing. A fair (no pun intended) amount of work.
 
In the late summer of 1942, Churchill was faced with critical decisions, notably what to do about weaknesses in the leadership of the British Eighth Army, which was facing Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s formidable Afrika Korps, as well as how to persuade Stalin to reinforce Europe’s eastern front. “It had become urgently necessary for me to go there and settle the decisive questions on the spot,” Churchill wrote in The Second World War. But such a trip would have ordinarily involved six days of flying and several nasty inoculations. “However,” he continued, “there arrived at the Air Ministry a young American pilot, Captain Vanderkloot, who had just flown from the United States in the aeroplane ‘Commando,’ a Liberator plane from which the bomb-racks had been removed and some sort of passenger accommodation substituted…. I could be in Cairo in two days without any trouble about Central African bugs…”

Commando was usually flown by Vanderkloot and another American, copilot Jack Ruggles. Flight engineers John Affleck and Ronnie Williams and radio officer Russ Holmes were Canadian. Today, Affleck is the only surviving crew member. He joined Vanderkloot on the first run with Churchill in August 1942. At the time, the young civilian flight engineer and racing car enthusiast was in West Palm Beach, Florida, fresh off a Liberator that had flown ammunition to Africa for the Eighth Army. “You didn’t have to be in the military to do that—they’d take anybody,” says Affleck. When asked if he would go to Cairo that night, he said, “Sure, I always wanted to see Cairo.”

Here's a site with detailed info on Liberators in RAF service:
http://www.99squadron.co.uk/index.p...-for-the-raflb-30&catid=29:the-b-24&Itemid=41

Some pics of Churchills 'Commando'. The nose was faired over later and fitted with a single fin. The plane was lost near the Azores in March 1945.
 
Good photos, Flash.

OK, Ted, you're forgiven! I hadn't realised the cowlings were different.
 
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