OFFICIAL B-17 Thread

Wow, right down to the oil spots on the tarmac.
Beautiful stuff.

 

Here is a video of the diorama in action. Make sure you turn up the volume:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5DDIb58udo]B-17 Model Diorama at IPMS 2014 Nationals in Hampton, Virginia 8-9-14 - YouTube[/ame]

 

Well, that certainly is pretty cool!

 

B-17 + Allison V12s = XB-38
Sadly the one proptype was ditched after an engine fire in flight.

The Prettiest B-17 Flying Fortress Was The XB-38
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From this year's EAA. The man in the chair was in front of it for quite a while and one could only imagine what was running through his mind.
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nothing puts a hop in my step like hearing four Cyclone radials throbbing in the sky and looking up to see a 74 year old Flying Fortress cruising almost directly overhead. By the time I could grab a camera B-17G "Texas Raiders" flying out of Spring TX today was coming back around a little further away, but my son was as excited as I was to hear and see such a magnificent machine in action.
Calendar marked for next year to take him to see her close up: https://www.b17texasraiders.org/index.php/b-17-flight?id=260

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Better pic of her, one of the last 20 to roll off the assembly line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Raiders

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Flights start at $475 for a waist gunner/radio seat, about the same as my flight in AO cost 10 years ago at Oshkosh but apparently you can no longer walk through the bomb compartment to get a view from the nose like I did. Pretty narrow catwalk, someone probably fell off so no more of that
https://www.b17texasraiders.org/index.php/b-17-flight?id=260#Form

 

I'm lucky! I got to fly in those AND got paid $45.00 a month. The catwalk thing could be and was a problem to navigate when you were wearing 20 pounds of heavy gear and chute harness and thick sheepskin high altitude outer wear that never kept you warm and always got caught up on the bomb racks. In the B-24 you could sometimes open the roller desktop bombay doors by stomping on them. Never tried that.

 

Preston's Pride in Tulare, Ca.
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I remember seeing that plane years ago while driving by on CA-99. Looks almost like new, now!

 

Me a few years ago taking a ride from Torrance Airport around Long Beach and back. What a thrill!

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Beautiful work ! Now I hope that the people in charge will keep it that way and protect the valuable war memorial that they have. Interesting that someone covered the fabric surfaces with metal skins, except for all of the rudder.

 

huh I forgot that the 17 had fabric covered control surfaces:

http://legendsintheirowntime.com/LiTOT/B17/B17_articles/B17_Av_4501_DA.html

"The rudder has a metal framework with hydropressed nose ribs forward, and tail ribs aft, of the spar. The entire frame is covered with highly processed fabric which, when properly applied, provides a control surface having a minimum tendency to flutter because of dynamic air forces."

Sounds like the flexibility of the fabric dampened higher frequency forces.

Do you know if most/all WWII bombers used fabric covered airlerons/elevator/rudder Bob?

 

I’m sure many people know about this, but if you don’t, and you love aeroplanes, then your jaw will be on the floor. It is a truly amazing piece of work, 17 years to build...... and it is going to be at Oshkosh 2018.

1/3 scale B17. IT IS NOT AN R/C MODEL. I repeat, IT HAS A HUMAN PILOT!! Kudos.

www.theballybomber.com

 

That is awesome. Hadn't seen updates in several years, where did you hear that it'll be at Oshkosh? Has is flown yet?

 

Right now, the only WW2 airplane that I can remember that didn't have fabric covered ailerons is the P-51. Everything else was fabric covered.

 

Hi, the EAA Twitter feed today says the Bally bomber has arrived for Oshkosh. it has flown successfully for a good year or so I believe. There are numerous clips on YouTube and I think a clip embedded in that twitter story too.

Regards.

Mark.

 

The B-17, B-24, B-25, B-26, B-29, B-34, C-46, C-47, AT-6, AT-7, P-39, P-40, all had fabric covered control surfaces, if my memory serves me. I seem to remember that the P-47 had metal covered control surfaces. The F4F, F4U, were fabric and in fact the early F4U wing was fabric covered aft of the rear spar. Working the ol' gourd pretty hard here.

 

I rubbed shoulders with all the aircraft listed except the Navy stuff but I did see them at the NACA labs at Langley Field.

 

Bob- Compressibility (transonic flow) badly affected fabric covered control surfaces. They would actually deform, so the really fast stuff had metal skinned control surfaces. Dad flew all the aircraft in your list except the B-29 and B-34, plus the Spit and several others. I still have a color Look magazine book published in 1943/44 that Dad wrote in

the margins how many hours he had in most types he was not flying operationally. They were pretty lax about who flew what during the war and early post-war period. One reason why the accident rate was around 146 Class A accidents per 100,000 flight hours just after the war. Now it is less than two. Not unusual now for an aircrew member to only fly one operational aircraft their entire career, some of them older than they are. Some of them are older than their grandfathers.​

 

I'm with you on all that, Taz, because I witnessed the accident rates even before I was in the service. I will post the figures that I have but I seem to recall that there were something like 55,000 accidents with 45,000 fatalities from Dec. 41 to Sept, 45....all within the USA. I know that 1942 - 1943 were deadly. There were guys trying to fly fighters that could hardly drive an automobile. But from what I read, the military plugged in the figures of how many losses would be accepted to get the numbers that they needed.
Ailerons wouldn't survive high speeds, low pressures, and flutter.

 

This is 44-83735 (F-BDRS) at Duxford when it was used for spares for "Sally-B" and numbered 231983. This aircraft is now in the American Air Museum at Duxford, looking much better than here!

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I think I remember reading about the P-47 prototype, had fabric on the tail surfaces.... they all deformed at high speed. Plane crashed and pilot was killed. All metal after that.

 

This is 44-85784 (G-BEDF), the only airworthy B-17 in the UK, in various guises:

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