RAF Liberator

My dad built the Palmer 1/12 Liberator from scratch.  He thought the structure was going to be weak and so he beefed it up.  The built up wings were replaced with foam cores.  It weighed in at 28 lbs and was powered by four OS 52 four strokes.  At the time, this was a new engine.  It had a twin needle carb, instead of the air bleed system on the 48, which it replaced.  It was built as a tribute to my dad's uncle, Bob McClelland, who served in 120 squadron, RAF Coastal Command in Iceland.  We took it down to Schenctady, NY in 1997, where it won the "best bomber" award.

I think they felt sorry for us, because we drove for 5-6 hrs to get there only to find out we had to make pylon turns to stay within their designated flying area.  I wanted to fly it scale and so they told me to land because I didn't want to rip the wings off.

Here's the only flying footage I have,

It was flown with two radios.  The pilot had all the main flying controls, while the co-pilot operated the onboard glow, landing gear and outer throttles.  This way, if any engine quit, we could throttle back the opposite engine and still have two engines running.  The plane would maintain height on two engines.  The large fowler flaps were very effective, especially with power on.  Our procedure was this,

Engines set for 8300 rpm on ground ( slightly rich ), idle at 2500 with glow, 3000 without ( the engines were inverted ).  The pilot would set flaps to about 1/3 down.  At the start of the takeoff roll, it was important for the nose wheel to stay in contact with the ground, in case the engines weren't perfectly synchronized.  Then, with a little forward speed, the rudders became effective and you could take the weight off the nose wheel with about 1/2 up elevator.  The plane would take off when it was ready.  The landing gear was retracted, followed by the flaps.  Once at height, the outer throttles were brought back to about 1/2 and remained there until landing.  The pilot then climbed or descended with the inner throttles.  The glow was usually turned off at this point.  Before landing, the glow was turned back on, the landing gear and flaps were lowered and the outer throttles were brought back to about 1/4.  Once a landing was assured, the outer engines were brought to idle, while the power remained on the inboard engines until touchdown, to provide extra lift over the wing, flaps and tail.  It had no brakes, so it wanted to keep rolling after touchdown.  The outer engines were then stopped and the plane taxied on the inboard engines.