Indian Air Force Liberators

Andy is quite right of course and the Indian Liberators were retired in the mid-60s, but several were stored for a few years with one flying to Canada for preservation at Rockcliffe and one going to the Pima Air museum, Arizona. Here is a very rare shot of the RAF Museum’s Liberator landing at RAF Lyneham on Sunday 7th July 1974, after overflying the IAT show at Greenham Common en-route from India. It only made one more flight after this, to nearby Colerne about three weeks later. Afterwards, it was roaded to Cosford.

Seven of the surviving B-24s have come from India, though I think infact it was more like 68 that they were retired.

In Veteran and Vintage Aircraft (1974) Leslie Hunt lists 11 airframes at Poona, so some of those were scrapped. Others did fly away to be preserved, including KN751 at Cosford, which made a memorable and unexpected flypast at the 1974 Greenham Common Air Tattoo, on its way to Colerne.

B-17’s did fly on into the 1980’s as fire-bombers, though not in MILITARY service.

Just remembered that some pictures emerged in the early 1980’s of a Chinese TU4 (Superfortress clone) with some sort of AEW dish on top, which was still in military usage.