CAF's Diamond Lil Needs Some Down Time | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-07.14.25

Airborne-NextGen-07.15.25

AirborneUnlimited-07.16.25

Airborne-FlightTraining-07.17.25

AirborneUnlimited-07.11.25

Tue, Apr 16, 2024

CAF's Diamond Lil Needs Some Down Time

Maintenance Waits for No One, as Warbird Pilots Know

The Commemorative Air Force's Jeremy Lashbrook, Squadron Leader for the B-29 and B-24, broke some bad news to fans looking forward to the upcoming Air Power History Tour: The B-24 Liberator, Diamond Lil', will need a lot of unanticipated maintenance.

"During the annual inspection of the B-24 “Diamond Lil” this off season, we made the determination that “Lil” needs some new feathers. Due to weathering, the cloth covered rudders, ailerons, and elevators, required new paint which also meant replacing the underlying fabric. During this process, we also felt that now would be a good time to replace the flight control cables that connect the control surfaces to the pilot’s yokes and rudder pedals."

"Unfortunately, this is an extensive project which will preclude our beautiful B-24 from being able to travel the country with the Air Power History Tour this summer as there have been unexpected delays in completing this project. Our maintenance team takes the utmost care of all our squadron aircraft and we feel the need to take these steps now in order to ensure that the world’s only flying B-24 is in tip top shape so that it can continue to fly for generations to come. We are currently anticipating this project to take an extensive amount of time to complete - possibly up to 5 months."

Lashbrook says the team can use every little bit of help it can get, with Lil down for the count. "As always, we could use additional volunteer assistance in the hangar to help with this large undertaking. If you are unable to support us with your time, any financial help would also be greatly appreciated. The unexpected loss of revenue from “Lil” not being out on tour is going to hit the squadron hard," he added. Running vintage, irreplaceable pieces of history at the kind of tempo air shows require is very expensive work.

"All of the income made while touring goes directly to the operation, support, and maintenance of our Squadron aircraft so that we can continue to share them with the American public, he finished. The wing can be supported at the aircraft's home site at the link below, with options like direct one-time gifts or the Diamond Lil Century Club.

"The show must go on!" Lashbrook promised. "We will continue to tour this summer and you can still see the world’s most famous flying B-29 Superfortress “Fifi”, P-51 Mustang “Gunfighter”, WASP T-6 Texan “Nella”, RC-45J Expeditor “Bob”, the PT-13 Stearman and others during our scheduled stops."

FMI: www.diamondlil.org

Advertisement

More News

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (07.15.25): Charted Visual Flight Procedure Approach

Charted Visual Flight Procedure Approach An approach conducted while operating on an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan which authorizes the pilot of an aircraft to proceed >[...]

Aero-News: Quote of the Day (07.15.25)

“When l became the Secretary of Defense, I committed to rebuild our military to match threats to capabilities. Drones are the biggest battlefield innovation in a generation, >[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (07.15.25)

Aero Linx: Stearman Restorers Association Welcome to the Stearman Restorers Association. The Stearman Restorers Association is an independent “Not for Profit” 501C-3 Co>[...]

NTSB Final Report: Kjelsrud Gary Kitfox

Airplane Exhibited A Partial Loss Of Engine Power When It Was About Halfway Down The Runway Analysis: The pilot of the experimental amateur-built airplane was departing from his pr>[...]

NTSB Prelim: Cessna A150L

The Flight Path Was Consistent With Low-Altitude Maneuvering On June 18, 2025, about 0922 mountain standard time, a Cessna A150L airplane, N6436F, was substantially damaged when it>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2025 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC