On the Road Again

Air Classics, Aug 2005 by O'Leary, Michael

Fuddy Duddy handles the chores for the EAA's 2005 Allied Victory Tour

Readers of this magazine will certainly recall the unfortunate landing gear collapse of the EAA's B-17G Aluminum Overcast at Van Nuys Airport on 5 May 2004. The only good thing about this incident is that the damage could have been a lot worse. Hard-working EAA volunteers got the Fort into flying shape and it was ferried home to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for further work. A deal was struck to utilize B-17G Fuddy Duddy and that aircraft is doing an admirable job in the 2005 Allied Victory Tour. Let's examine the history on this particular Flying Fortress.

The first Boeing B-17G (still retaining the Boeing designation Model 299-O) flew from Seattle, Washington, on 21 May 1943, but the first B-17G delivered to the Army Air Force came from Douglas, and this event occurred on 4 September of the same year.

Why Douglas? The reason goes back to before America's entry into World War Two.

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 E model flew on 27 September 1941 instead of the contract date of 30 April. However, through maximum effort, the company would make up the lost time as the B-17E production rate increased, the final aircraft in the contract would actually be delivered ahead of schedule. Even with this much larger production run of Flying Fortresses (compared to the earlier variants), there was still a great deal of individual hand-fitting on the line but nothing like the amount of man-hours that had been expended on the earlier machines. Boeing was well on its way to achieving the hoped-for mass production, but the increasing pressure of war would introduce a unique concept for building bombers.

The demand for Flying Fortresses was now so great that Boeing and the government 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, California. In April 1941, Lockheed's Courtland and Robert Gross entered into discussions with Maj. Gen. Oliver P. Echols about the possibility of producing the Flying Fortress under license. Realizing their proposed new civilian airliners (Constellations) would probably be drastically affected by the coming of war, the pair saw the obvious merit in joint production of 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 the Lockheed Air Terminal in Burbank, the company went to work with a vengeance on preparing to produce new bombers. Further south, Douglas was doing the same at Long Beach. This plan, known as the B-V-D Pool, became a model of efficiency and Vega flew its first B-17F 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 achieve the lowest man-hours required to build a Flying Fortress.

With the B-17G, a total of 8680 aircraft would be built it would also be the last production version of the Fort - with Vega contributing 2250 Gs and Douglas 395 bombers. Fortress production was completely stopped on 13 April 1945.

One of the aircraft to roll out of the hangar doors at Douglas was B-17G-85-DL USAAF s/n 44-83563. Accepted by the military on 7 April 1945, but since so many Forts were already in the military pipeline, the bomber was flown to Patterson Field, Ohio, and was placed into temporary storage where it remained for just a month. The plane was then pulled out and made airworthy for a long flight to Clark Field in the Philippines to be utilized as a CB-17G staff transport.

The next assignment on the aircraft's record card indicates that on 30 April 1947, it went to Tachikawa, Japan, where it became part of the Pacific Air Services Command of the Far East Air Force (FEAF). In mid-1948, it became a VB-17G and this meant most of the military equipment was deleted while a better form of interior was installed for hauling VIPs. While in this role, the plane transported Gen. Dwight Eisenhower at least once.

The converted bomber then went on to fly briefly with the 39th Troop Carrier Squadron before being transferred to the Far East Air Material Command. At the start of 1949, the Fort was with the 13th Aviation Repair Squadron at several bases in Japan.

Shortly after the start of the Korean War, the VB-17G went back to Far East Air Material Command at Yakota, Japan, where it shared ramp space with the Douglas B-26 Invaders of the 3rd Bomb Group. It is known that some VB-17Gs helped with evacuations of personnel from airfields that were being over-run by North Koreans, but it is not known if 44-83563 was one of those aircraft.

The Fort was certainly getting some frequent flyer miles because in early 1952 it was flown to Middletown Air Depot in Pennsylvania for a complete overhaul. After this was done, it was back to Japan for service with the 6003rd Base Flight Squadron at Haneda. One of five VB-17Gs assigned to the unit, the aircraft was used to haul VIPs all over the Far East.