Consolidated C-87 Liberator Express - Operational History

Operational History

Most C-87s were operated by the U.S. Air Transport Command and flown by civilian crews from U.S. civil airlines. The planes were initially used on transoceanic routes too long to be flown by the C-47. After the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942, the C-87 was used for flying war material from India to besieged Chinese forces over "The Hump", the treacherous air route that crossed the Himalayas. When the route was established, the C-87 was the only readily available American transport with high-altitude performance good enough to fly this route while carrying a large cargo load.

The C-87 was plagued by numerous problems and suffered from a poor reputation amongst its crews. Ernest K. Gann, in Fate is the Hunter said, "They were an evil bastard contraption, nothing like the relatively efficient B-24 except in appearance." Complaints centered around the clumsy flight control layout, frequent engine problems, hydraulic leaks, and a disconcerting tendency to lose electrical power in the cockpit during takeoff and landing. The C-87 did not climb well when heavily loaded, a dangerous characteristic when flying out of the unimproved, rain-soaked airfields of India and China; many were lost in collisions with terrain soon after takeoff. Ernest K. Gann's book recounts a near-collision with the Taj Mahal after takeoff in a heavily loaded C-87. The aircraft's auxiliary long-range fuel tanks were linked by improvised and often leaky fuel lines that crisscrossed the crew compartment, choking flight crews with noxious gasoline fumes and creating an explosion hazard. The C-87 also had a tendency to enter an uncontrollable stall or spin in the event of inflight airframe icing, a frequent occurrence over the Himalayas in the days before accurate weather forecasting (Gann said they "...could not carry enough ice to chill a highball").

The aircraft could also become unstable in flight if its center of gravity shifted due to improper cargo loading. This longitudinal instability arose from the aircraft's hasty conversion from bomber to cargo transport. Unlike a normal cargo transport, which was designed from the start with a contiguous cargo compartment with a safety margin for fore-and-aft loading variations, the bomb racks and bomb bays built into the B-24 design were fixed in position, greatly limiting the aircraft's ability to tolerate improper loading. This problem was exacerbated by wartime exigencies and the failure of USAAF Air Transport Command to instruct loadmasters in the C-87's peculiarities. The design's roots as a bomber are also considered culpable for frequently collapsing nosegear; its strength was adequate for an aircraft that dropped its payload in flight before landing on a well-maintained runway, but it proved marginal for an aircraft making repeated hard landings on rugged unimproved airstrips while heavily loaded.

The C-87 was rapidly displaced on the front lines by the Douglas C-54 Skymaster and Curtiss C-46 Commando, which offered similar high-altitude performance combined with greater reliability and more benign flight characteristics. Some surviving C-87 aircraft were converted into VIP transports or flight crew trainers, and several others were sold to the Royal Air Force.