It’s estimated that there are only about four B-17s left that are flying in the United States.

 https://www.kptv.com/2026/05/05/historic-wwii-aircraft-lacey-lady-being-restored-flight/

B17 being worked on in NZ by Avspecs.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10239853139455935&set=pcb.3370388743137309

8Th Air Force Bomber Command, B-17 nose art of tough caveman Alley Oop, hurling a bomb while riding the back of a terradactyl, 325th Bomb Squadron

https://images.google.com/hosted/life/6b2bdc19efecc54c.html

Alina ordered a copy of this book after watching Masters Of The Air... and got a hell of a surprise... she got a signed copy, by the author, and Rosie Rosenthal, and more handwritten cool stuff

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=26158815357082751&set=pcb.10164176411427728

a B 17 in Papua New Guinea

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2298838260527690&set=pcb.10164031243762728

wow, what a cool project this must have been back in the day when crew members were alive to meet and collect signatures from

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1370977924491987&set=gm.10163884908912728&idorvanity=9261317727

cool book on B 17s!

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=4051963615115489&set=pcb.10163581313687728

What a cool thing to pass down to your kids and grand kids.... what you did, what you were a part of, the work you did to help the cause of freedom

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10226027847189833&set=pcb.10161560068907728

grandmothers I’d card when she worked for Boeing. 

When any employee left the company and at the end of the war they all had to hand over their id card

But for some reason this family that worked for Boeing for 5 generations, and eight of this family were building the B-17, had a way around that. 

I'm glad they did, this is very cool

a mangled propeller is about all that remains of a B-17 bomber that crashed by the Porcupine Mountains (Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Yoop!)

On April 18th, 1944 the B-17 was on a training mission when it left Sioux City Iowa headed to Marquette. During the flight an engine caught fire and they were ordered to land in Duluth Minnesota for repairs. Unfortunately, the underpowered airplane was not going to make it. Fortunately, the crew bailed out and landed safely on the ground.

 The bomber crashed in the trees somewhere south of the Lake In The Clouds

The flight crew managed to walk to Silver City. At the time, the old boarded-up gift shop was a bar and the airmen waited there for their rescue. The military quickly came in and recovered the wreckage of the airplane especially the machine guns that were onboard. One of the propellers was left at the bar in Silver City as a reminder of the incident.

https://lostinmichigan.net/the-b-17-crash-in-the-porkies/

Anyone else see that “Amazing Stories” episode from 1985 about the ball-turret gunner stuck in a B-17 with a jammed up landing gear that has to make a belly landing?

written and directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Casey Siemaszko as the trapped gunner and Kevin Costner as the pilot, an equally unknown Kiefer Sutherland as the radio operator, focusing on the gunner's imaginative efforts to survive after his turret jams and landing gear breaks during a WWII bombing run.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0511124/

good one!

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2094132844661162&set=gm.1169472872061459&idorvanity=501116445563775

In 1942, Frank Szymanski switched from making cars on an assembly line to assembling B17 bombers for Boeing. He then realized that Boeing did not have a clue how to build wings for B17 quickly, perfectly, efficiently... so he showed them how to reduce the time from 20 hours to 2.

his ability to see the obvious, that management was oblivious to because they do paperwork, not stepping onto the assembly line and earning some calluses, brought the production of B17s from 14 planes a month to over 362.

And Boeing was weeks away from losing the contract, because their production was too slow

What was the initial problem Boeing wasn't clued into? Heat expansion. 

Hot rivets on one end of the wing would cause just enough thermal expansion that rivet holes on the other end of the wing wouldn't line up. 

So, he demonstrated that starting the installation around the main structure points, with the workers spread out, reduced thermal expansion, placing hot rivets at various distant points, where the metal was cool, spread the heat out, reduced the amount in any one area, and the rivet holes didn't get shifted elsewhere on the wing. 

If you want to listen to 40 minutes, plus commercials, etc that never seem to answer the question, until 70 percent of the way through the video, doesn't even start to address the issue until 14 minutes into the video after wasting your time with history, flashbacks, etc... then here it is, and as always, increase the play speed from 1.0 to 1.25 because video makers are deliberately slowing down the speed to waste your time for stats to earn more from You Tube

A cool graphic comparing the size of a WWII B-17 bomber (green) with a modern F-15C fighter (red). It’s amazing how today’s fighters are almost as big and heavy as four-engine heavy bombers of the past.

https://x.com/RealAirPower1/status/1983580818736886188

there's a digital collection of 1920-1945 military aircraft you might want to look through

it's got a lot to look through

Pistol Packin’ Mama on the ground at the 401st Bomb Group’s base, ran into Sweat’er Out and so severely damaged it, it was scrapped

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122243571056175349&set=a.122127544616175349

Compliments to the Sandbar Mitchell team for helping out the Desert Rat with a belly gunner ball turret!

 

Though the restoration began in 1985, it's still got another 40 years to go. 

I first posted about it in 2013 https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2013/12/there-is-b-17-getting-restored-that-was.html

I first posted about the Sandbar Mitchell in 2014 https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2014/01/sandbar-mitchell-was-finally-lifted-out.html

https://www.facebook.com/12595DesertRat

https://www.facebook.com/Sandbarmitchell