I read somewhere that the B-17 had a better chance of remaining in one piece if it was forced to crash land in the water where a B-24 almost always broke to pieces because of the higher wings.
Here are some ditchings http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjadMxpXprk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7W-ly_lMFw
Great video--thanks Dave. The 17 does look like it did a much smoother job. Seems the 24 would tip and a wing would catch.
The B-24's issue with ditching was primarily with the bomb bay doors. The roll-up doors could not withstand the water pressure and would collapse inward. Then the fuselage was a giant water scoop and the resultant force would break the B-24's back. Note that's exactly what happened in the controlled ditching test in the video Dave posted. The high wing was a contributing factor in that the fuselage takes all of the water load. A low wing aircraft spreads the water load onto the wing roots also.
Actually, if you look at the video(7:25-7:32), it does not look as if the bomb bay doors failed, bit that the front landing gear doors failed, and the resulting damage and water pressures almost caused the nose to completely separate from the aircraft. Still, I agree that with the high wing, the fuselage is bearing all the force from a water landing.
The typical failure mode in B-24 ditching was the bomb bay doors collapsing. You are correct that they did not collapse in the test ditching, but that is because they were replaced by 1/8 inch steel plate with internal wood bracing for the test. The post 26 of this previous thread has links to the NACA test report on the test ditching. http://www.ww2f.com/topic/44203-b-17-v-b-24/page-2
Wow. I stumbled across this one. Seems kind of relevant to this thread, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRAPAh78ntM
Within the film at about the 10:10 mark is footage of the aircraft flown by Lt. Bernard Ball, details in the recently linked obit thread: http://www.ww2f.com/topic/52532-bernard-l-ball-for-extraordinary-achievement-in-aerial-flight/
Again it would be nice to know if this tendency was real or not. It doesn't seem unreasonable especially with the wing fuel tanks. As far as anacdotal evidence goes by Uncles's plane fell out of formation on fire one time. I think I've told this story before but ... The policy of their unit was to break up a new crew and to assign them to a position with a vetran crew on thier first mission then put them back together for subsequent missions. On the mission in question my Uncle's plane had a green copilot. They had just come off a rather rough bombing run and the green copilot without thinking lit up a cigarette. The Pilot saw what was happening in time to knock the oxygen mask off the copilots head so he didn't loose the same. However a rather nasty cockpit fire developed and as I said earlyier they fell out of formation in flames. The pilot actually gave the bail out command but somehow they were missing some chutes but had extra fire extinquishers (I seem to recall my uncle stateing he was responsible for that). They used the latter to put out the fire and made it back (by themselves) to an emergency field in Britain. As they didn't make it back with the squadron and were last seen on flames and out of control they were reported MIA and word reached their commander that they were ok just before he sent out the letters informing the next of kin. This might actually have been worse in a B-17 if it were at higher altitude though, oxygen fires are nasty and the further above 10,000 feet you are the worse they get since need for oxygen increases with altitude above that level.
Good story lwd! No, I haven't seen that one before. It strikes me that this tendency to break up when ditching was rather unfortunate in a plane that spent much of its time over water (the Med, Atlantic, English Channel etc.) Does anyone have any idea what survival gear they had in the plane? I did a quick internet search and all I found was stuff for use on land such as pistols, knives etc.
The B-24 had two life raft hatches on the upper fuselage surface just aft of the top turret. The hatches could be opened from either an internal or external release handle.
This post is well no truth is going to come out of this because people only remember the good stuff. As explained here...http://youtu.be/w-CK8VxMz9g
Thanks mcoffe, I figured they should have some someplace. Any info on water, flares and flare guns, food, dye packets, 1st aid kits, etc? On the B-17 vs B-24 fire issue: As I understand it, and I could be wrong here, the B-17 had the fuel tanks within the wing, while in the B-24 the hollow space within the wing was the tank. If this was indeed the case, a 20mm HE hit on a B17 would detonate on the outer wing and pepper the actual fuel cell with shrapnel-which probably could be closed by the self-sealing material. On the other hand, on the B-24, that same hit would open up a large hole in the wing/fuel tank that the self-sealer wouldn't be able to close and probably ignite the gas itself.
Video of wing tanks being installed in B-24 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jwvlZISfMeg
There's a book out on the topic that's suppose to be quite good. http://www.amazon.com/Exploding-Fuel-Tanks-Technology-Changed/dp/1450773052 I haven't read it but the reviews over on j-aircraft have been very positive.
