THUNDERBIRD

Air Classics, Aug 2004 by O'Leary, Michael

THE LONE STAR FLIGHT MUSEUM'S BOEING B-I7G HAS JUST EMERGED FROM A COMPLETE REPAINT. WE EXAMINE THE HISTORY OF THIS PARTICULAR AIRCRAFT AND THE ORIGINAL B-17 IT REPRESENTS

With the end of the Second World War, France was a devastated country. However, with the assistance of America and its Allies, a concerted effort was made to help get the once-occupied nation back on its feet. France always had a proud aviation industry and the Germans took advantage of this during the war by making the French produce aircraft for the Luftwaffe, With the end of the war, production of these aircraft continued to help equip the Armee de l'Air which was also being aided by the arrival of surplus American and British aircraft.

With the end of the war, the world was turned upside down and many new national boundaries had to be established. The French company Institut Geographique National reasoned that there was good business to be had by mapping new countries around the globe. However, a suitable mapping platform had to be found.

Agents for IGN examined the surplus military aircraft storage yards in the United States and were surprised to find that nearly-new Boeing B-17G Flying Fortresses were available for sale. The Fort, with its proven high-altitude capabilities, had plenty of room in its fuselage and bomb bay to accommodate a variety of cameras and other equipment needed for the mapping mission.

As with many other American aircraft, production of the B-17G continued after there was no need for the type. With the war in Europe over, new Forts were still rolling off the lines. There was no plan to use the B-17 in the final war against the Home Islands so brand-new bombers were flown to storage, many of them going to Syracuse, New York. Included in this group was B-17G USAAF s/n 44-85718.

However, we first have to go back a few years and quickly examine B-17 production. Because of problems hiring new personnel, erecting new facilities at Boeing Field and an erratic supply of materials, Boeing started to fall behind on the delivery of the B-17E. The first aircraft took to the air on 27 September 1941 instead of the contract date of 30 April. However, through a maximum effort, the company would make up the lost time as the B-17E production rate increased, and the final aircraft in the contract would actually be delivered well ahead of schedule. Even with this much larger production run of aircraft, there was still a great deal of individual hand-fitting on the line but nothing like the amount of man-hours that had to be expended on earlier variants. Boeing was well on its way to achieving the hoped-for mass-production, but the increasing pressure of war would introduce a unique new concept for buildins? bombers.

The demand for Flying Fortresses was so great that Boeing realized it could not fulfill the ever-increasing orders. Accordingly, a new plan was created to bring other manufacturers into the B-17 production stream, namely the Vega Division of Lockheed Aircraft at Burbank Airport and Douglas Aircraft at Long Beach. In April 1941, Courtland and Robert Gross of Lockheed entered into discussion with MaJ. Gen. Oliver P. Echols about the possibility of producing the Flying Fortress under license. Realizing their proposed new civilian airliner (the Constellation) would probably be drastically affected by the coming of the war, the pair saw the obvious merit in joint production of the bombers.

Lockheed received a B-17E pattern aircraft, blueprints and a certain amount of tooling and loaned technical expertise from Boeing. Increasing its work force for the various plants surrounding Lockheed Air Terminal, the company went to work with a vengeance on preparing to produce new bombers. Further south, Douglas was doing the same at Long Beach. The new trio of builders became known as the B-V-D (Boeing-Vega-Douglas) Pool.

The first Vega-built B-17F, 42-5705, first flew on 4 May 1942, which was six months ahead of the USAAF's schedule and one month ahead of the company's schedule. Vega would go on to achieve the lowest man-hours required to build a Flying Fortress. How much did a B-17F cost the American tax-payer? Only Vega had a fixed price contract which set the cost at $337,025 per bomber - Boeing and Douglas had contracts of escalating scale. Boeing had originally (and often incorrectly) figured the profit into the final figure, but the new contract allowed the company a six percent profit over cost of the aircraft, although this was later reduced to five percent. However, as more items and better equipment were added to the production line, the cost of each aircraft fluctuated and the price of a B-17F could run between $310,000 to $402,000.

The B-17G soon took over on the Vega line and production of this variant continued until the military terminated the contract on 28 July 1945. By this time, Vega had built 500 B-17Fs and a stunning 2250 B-17Gs. All these aircraft were completed to a very high standard and among them was 44-85718.

Completed by Vega on 8 May 1945, our subject aircraft was accepted by the USAAF two days later. A ferry crew then flew the gleaming bomber from Burbank to Louisville, Kentucky. The plane arrived at this Lockheed combat modification facility on 13 May and remained at that location for two months while all the latest updates were fitted. However, there was no need for the bomber at this time and it was flown to storage at Syracuse on 6 July. On 12 October 1945, the USAAF declared the hundreds of Forts at Syracuse to be excess to needs and the planes were turned over to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) which was the institution assigned with the responsibility of disposing of America's vast fleet of wartime equipment.