USAAF Consolidated B-24D Liberator

The Consolidated B-24D, “Liberator”, was the primary aircraft used at the TWA managed Four Engine School located at Kirtland Army Air Field. The school had TWA pilots as instructors and the school was opened in September of 1941. The school, also known at the Jack Frye School, was located at the Eagles Nest Flight Center and trained over 1,100 pilots and crew during the eight months it was in operation.  After almost twenty hours of flying together, the crews were sent to assignments in every World War II theater of operations. The famed TWA chief pilot, Captain Harold F. “Blackie” Blackburn, was the first director of this school in 1941.

One of these planes, 41-1133, crashed into a mountain peak while on a training flight near the Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron N.M.