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The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is an American four-engined heavy bomber aircraft developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). A fast and high-flying bomber, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater of Operations and dropped more bombs than any other aircraft during World War II.
The B-17B (299M) was the first production model of the B-17 and was essentially a B-17A with a slightly larger rudder, larger flaps, a redesigned nose and 1,200 hp (890 kW) R-1820-51 engines. The small, globe-like, machine gun turret used in the Y1B-17's upper nose blister was replaced with a .30 in (7.62 mm) machine gun, its barrel run through ...
The American B-17G Flying Fortress (introduced in 1943), which carried a lead crew made up of five officers (pilot, co-pilot, dead reckoning navigator, pilotage navigator/nose gunner and bombardier). It also had five enlisted men (engineer/top turret gunner, radio operator/waist gunner, a second waist gunner, ball turret gunner and tail turret ...
The tail gunner is located below the fin. All B-17s have a retractable tail-wheel landing gear. The B-17G weights 32,720 pounds (14,840 kg) empty. Fully armed and loaded, a B-17 can weigh 65,600 pounds (29,800 kg) Payloads ran between 4,000–5,000 pounds (1,800–2,300 kg), but they could carry up to 17,600 pounds (8,000 kg) for shorter missions.
The design was mainly deployed on the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-24 Liberator, as well as the United States Navy's Liberator, the PB4Y-1. The ventral turret was used in tandem in the Convair B-32, successor to the B-24. Ball turrets appeared in the nose and tail as well as the nose of the final series B-24.
Additional armor plating was installed to protect crew positions. [1] The aircraft's gross weight was some 4,000 lb (1,800 kg) greater than a fully armed B-17. An indication of the burden this placed on the YB-40 is that while the B-17F on which it was based was rated to climb to 20,000 ft (6,100 m) in 25 minutes, the YB-40 was rated at 48 minutes.
Piccadilly Lilly II is a B-17 Flying Fortress currently on display at the Planes of Fame air museum in Chino, California. [1] Built in 1945 as a B-17G and assigned serial number 44-83684, this plane was possibly the last aircraft assigned to the Eighth Air Force / 447th Bomb Group, but perhaps not delivered. [2]
"Directly below us (on 19 May 1944 to Berlin in B-17G 42-102411 [12]) in the path of our falling bombs was a B-17 out of position. Later pictures show a B-17 having his left stablizer shorn off by a five hundred-pound bomb dropped from above. That plane went into a steep dive, out of control, and was lost.