We were talking about actual period colors and thought you guys might like these actual color photos from 1942 of a YB-17 at Langley. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Kind of humorous actually. Just like zig zagging didn't help the surface ships, just ask a Japanese sub Captain.
Not at all. If it wasn't for first hand accounts like yours that stuff just will not be recorded correctly. Just keep on tellin like it was, we are all ears.
That was the original idea for nose protection....and with one cal. 30 popgun. Also the interior shot shows the aluminized lacquer finish in pre-war B-17's. Great photos.
Here are some photos of the Model 299 Prototype of The B-17 and its demise in 1935 Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Wonderful thread. Thank you Bob Parks for all your reminiscences. I've been a warbird fan all of my life and have worked in aerospace all my adult life. I worked for several years at North American Rockwell in El Segundo, Ca. in Tech Pubs. One day my boss called me into his office and points to a couple of boxes and asks "you want some of those." The boxes were filled with tech manuals that were being tossed out from the tech library. P-51, B-25, FJ, F-86, F100, even X-15 and XB-70. I took it all. Here's a sample; http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/8586/p51ccutawayyo1.jpg http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/8885/p51titleuz4.jpg http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/7972/b25gunsrt4.jpg Just a note, the aircraft in Post 81 above looks to be a Mitsubishi G4M1 "Betty", not a B-17. Cheers, Kurt O.
Thanks for the comments. My memories are all that I have now that is really active. Can't fly anymore but that's okay. By the way, that is a "Betty" in post 81. It isn't very noticeable but the B-17 nose loft is not circular. The top is slightly flattened to accommodate the windscreen and the frame contour at the junction of the nose dome has little cheeks on each side to accommodate the bomb aimer's flat glass panel.
I posted the Betty photo to get a reaction. Very good. Can you post more of your Manual covers please? Here is one from a B-17's Navigator. Image Unavailable, Please Login
B-17s flying over the clouds and through the FLAK, the German anti-aircraft guns. I can only imagine the distress of those young crew members trapped inside the noisy and cold fuselages. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I only have two manuals here at home, the rest are in storage. I'll post up some more pages from the 2 manuals I have here, both are pilot's flight manuals, P-51 and B-25. In the mean time, here is something I snagged off of another forum. A slideshow of photos from the Ford Willow Run B-24 plant. http://public.fotki.com/Kos/members_photo_galle/wiilow_run_bomber/?cmd=fs_slideshow Cheers, Kurt O.
That's the scariest picture I have seen of a box of flak and it describes exactly what an ex-German AA 88MM gun crew told me. The altitude, heading, and airspeed were fed into the gun aiming system and a block of guns would fire into a prescribed box and fill it with everything they could as fast as they could as the bombers reached it. It was far more effective than anyone could imagine. Pilots that I knew and crew that I flew with feared flak more than anything. The Germans had a great weapon in the 88 and they were very smart in using it as they were in their other weapons. Two guys in our barrack had multiple scars and wounds from flak shrapnel. The German gunner that I knew said that their 88's were fired to destruction sometimes due to the high angle of elevation and the high rate of fire. He was in Hamburg and said that he saw many B-24's go down from their fire but that they also had bombs bursting all around them after watching them coming down on them. So, there is the other side of the story.
Thank you for that link. Very much appreciated. I like to see photos of the big bomber plants with all the workers. More than 18000 (!) B-24's were assembled. Here is a photo of a 457th Bomber Group B-17 crew (see also my post #40). My friend Russ KARL is the second man standing from the left. He was the radio-man. They made a belly-landing in September 1944. Over Germany, the B-17 was hit by anti-aircraft fire, damaging engine n°3. The bomber left formation and headed west. The navigator was injured and the crew prayed they would reach friendly territory in France. They began throwing belts of ammunition out the waist doorways to lighten their load and stay in the air as long as possible. Another shell fired from the ground struck between two crew members. They jumped through the doorway. The rest of the crew never saw them again. The B-17 continued west and the fuel was running low. The pilot decided to land the plane. The crew assumed crash positions in the radio room. The plane skidded across the field, sometimes hitting roads between each field, causing the plane to launch back into flight. When the bomber finally came to rest, the crew ran out in case the plane caught fire. Pretty soon, a lot of people were there. French people! The French underground pumped out what was left of the plane's fuel. Three days later, the crew was flown to London and taken to the 457th air base. In the other photos, you see the plane in a field in France. Years later, I came in contact with Russell KARL, and he came to France with hiw wife. As we visited him in Illinois, I was happy to meet also the navigator, the ball-turret gunner and another gunner. Also a ground mechanic. In the last photo, the rest of the crew in 1995. Russ is on the far right. They had the chance to return home. Many, many others not. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Really interesting stuff from Giotto in France. Thanks. The B-17 with crew appears to be an early G model with the "High Hat' top turret and a large stateside training I.D. number. The airplane on the ground (" U ") shows what looks like machine gun damage on the vertical fin and early tail gun configuration.
The B-17 had a distinctive sound that I can still hear today. Those 9 cylinder R-1820's were not the same as the liquid smooth sound of the P&W R-1830. Even running through the turbo's they still had a slight popping sound. I recall that Boeing wanted to use the P&W but the government edicted that two contractors had to be supplying engines to war effort and the B-17 had to use the Wright. It turned out to be a great engine for a great airplane and the combination proved to be unbeatable, much like the P&W on the B-24. Then there was the R-2800 on the long string of successful fighters. The Merlin was the king of the in-lines, of course. Sounds of 20 B-17's in formation was a nice rumble. Then a flight of 8 P-51's coming over at 500 feet to do a fighter pitchout ....I can still hear them popping and farting when they were throttled back. Spitfires were almost the same. Even the T-28 with the uneven stacks is a great sound and the F8 Bearcat is a good one. Okay, I'll quit. Too bad there is no way to regenerate the sounds in my head
The Liberty Belle is back at the Burbank Airport this weekend. http://www.glendalenewspress.com/articles/2009/03/11/news/gnp-liberty11.txt
She was in Addison, TX this past weekend. Pics, but not mine: http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/7542282_zfHke/2#487240360_x68Bp
