OFFICIAL B-17 Thread

I just now saw this thread. Ya gotta love it!! I remember sitting at home with my Dad watching 12 O'Clock High on the tube. He told stories of looking up at the sky from Bastogne and seeing nothing but 17's. He used to say that it made the GI's feel great. My best adventure was getting a ride on a 17 a few years back out of a small airport in Central Ohio. It was a beautiful fall day. We got to go most everywhere in that beautiful bird when we were cruising. The best part was looking out and seeing a P-51 off our starbord wing, flying wing-tip to wing-tip. I'll try to locate my picture of this. What a sight!! Boeing made a beautiful bird with the 17. I'd love another ride any time I could get one!!

This photo was taken at the Gathering of Mustings and Legends at Rickenbacker ANG Base a couple of summers ago. Absolutely amazing!! The most awesome and beautiful flying artwork anyone could imagine.
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fantastic

 

Just found this thread. Great stuff - read and looked at it all.

We live along the Delaware river between NJ and PA and always get a lot of military flights following the river. We have several local Steerman (Boeing) bi-planes flying around here and I almost bought one once. Love radial engines! Every once in a while we'll get a B17 flying over multiple times when there's a nearby air show (Trenton I think). One weekend last summer a B17 and a B24 kept flying over about once every hour at about 1000 feet altitude, turn around the town and come back over the house again. Great sights and sounds. I kept running outside to watch, every time I heard the rumble coming.

Thank you everyone for posting all this fascinating. information.

 

I am glad to have found this section also and to have others so passionate about something so special... the B-17. The sound of the four Wright "Cyclone" engines is like no other.
Dad was a B-17 pilot, 8th Airforce 306th Bombardment Group (H) 423rd Squadron, Thurleigh, Bedfordshire,1944 ,45.

Doug

 

Recently we had the chance to polish "Fuddy Duddy" for General Lyon. If oyu like pictures of B17 please follow this link and enjoy - http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32292

 

An interesting connection is that many Wright 1820s on B-17s continued to serve their country in war - they were pulled off mothballed B-17s at DM and placed on T-28s, destined to serve in Vietnam as FACS.

 

Flying over Dallas this weekend.
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Y'all might appreciate this thread: http://www.meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32292

 

I have to say thanks for posting all that B-17 stuff especially the Superior Shine series of pics. It was great to see how good that airplane looked. I found myself recognizing all sorts of details that no one else would be interested in...like the Cheyenne mod " Pumpkin Turret", the " High Hat" top turret, the Vega Nose dome (instead of the ugly spherical 1945 mod), brake de-boost lines on the landing gear,and dents in the upper left hand forward fuselage from ice slung off the prop of number two, and many other things. Really good to see that. Beautiful.Thanks much.
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how many are still flying?

 

There are about a dozen that are still flying with just a little over 40 that are intact.

 

I saw one warming up on the ramp yesterday. Didn't see it take off, as I had work to do, unfortunately.

 

It was 1942 when my family moved from NY to Burbank, CA. I was just a little guy, always watching the sky. Continually, B-17s and P-38s flew over my house, on their way "out".
Can an airplane smile at you when you watch it fly over? To this day IMHO, no airplane of that era was as beautiful as the B-17. It never failed to smile at me Look at Pettit's post #107, second picture - - see the smile??? It's in the leading edge of the wing

Damn, they're beautiful.......

 

Wow - talk about a journey down memory lane reading this thread! I was one of Ed Maloney's first 'employees' at his original Air Museum in Claremont, CA in the late '50s, early '60s while attending high school. Used to rush to the museum after school was out and stay as late as possible and was there most Saturdays and Sundays. Great times helping to restore some great aircraft (Ki-84 "Frank", A6M5 "Zeke", P-51D, P-47, Me-262, etc.) and some not so great times like inhaling boatloads of toxic fumes while applying paint remover to the inside of a P-47 fuselage (a job that could be done standing up...before you collapsed!).

We rented several aircraft to local movie studios - our Zeke for (static) use in the Frank Sinatra/Steve McQueen film "Never So Few" (really cool watching McQueen give the plane a through once over between takes) and memorably, our B-17 for "12 O'Clock High".

The -17 was used to shoot taxi scenes in a rather confined space but, at the time, it had a leaky hydraulic system and I was 'nominated' to continuously pump the hand pump to keep enough pressure in the system to ensure the thing stopped when asked. Sounds pretty straightforward but as it turned out the director wanted several takes - which took forever - and my arm damn near fell off. Jeez - I just felt a twinge thinking about it!

As a side note, my father was a senior executive at Lockheed - started there in 1939 as a scheduler on the P-38 assembly line - and our family later had as dinner guests people like Tony LeVier and "Fish" Salmon. If I could only find the rewind button I'd sure like to participate in those meals again...

 

A good story that in itself emphasizes how many years have passed since the B-17 was the warhorse that was simply a part of our lives during the war. I lived with hundreds of them for a while and now I wish that I could recreate the scene because it was a magical experience that will never happen again. I was not in combat but for years I thought of the experience as just something that I did but now it has become a vision of history in which I had a dim part. The years that have past have cast a different light on it and I look at it as a play that someone put together and I happened to see it.

 

The EAA's B-17 ("Aluminum Overcast") is coming to Crites Field in Waukesha, WI this coming weekend. Not sure if I will be able to go see her as we have a busy weekend, but will try to get over there and at least take the kids on the ground tour. We see a lot of planes coming over our house so hopefully we'll see her in the air.

http://www.wingsoverwaukesha.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=2

 

I saw a B17 for the first time on June 6. Yankee Lady was at the Mid Atlantic Air Museum's WWII Weekend. WOW! That plane is amazing, the size and the noise of that thing is incredible! After seeing it, it now ranks as my favorite American plane ever.

 

Hi there

I wanted to share what I came across in youtube. I hope it is not a double post about it.
Specially for you, Bob Parks, it is pleasure to read your stories.

Yours
Samuli

Fly in a B17 "Fuddy Duddy", Part 1 of 2.
Fly in a B17 "Fuddy Duddy", Part 2 of 2.

 

Thank you Samuli. I'm not one of those who saw a lot of action so I lay no claim to having a voice of experience. I was near a lot of the equipment and flew with some crews and did have a bit of exposure to the aircraft of WW2 at a few airbases.

 

Some shots from last weekend- Aluminum Overcast paid a little visit to Zamperini Field in Torrance, CA. As others have said, these birds are definitely not built for anyone over 6'...
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Nice! Thanks.

 

+1 !!!

 

Thanks guys.. here's a few more. I was trying to get some unusual angles as most photos are more of the same.

Err.. and a few "bonus round" shots as well.
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Brave men,great aircraft.

 

I noticed the absence of the glycol boilers on the shot of the number three engine nacelle. The stock Boeing nose dome, and ,I think, one of the control system inspection panels. Late models B-17 from the type of waist gun mounts.
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