I had occasion to visit the Erickson Aircraft Collection museum at Madras, Oregon, recently, and took a close look at B-17G 44-85718 (N900RW), that formerly flew as Thunderbird with the Lone Star Flight Museum at Houston, Texas. The B-17 was sold to the Mid America Flight Museum at Mount Pleasant, Texas, in December 2020, and it was subsequently ferried to Madras, Oregon, for a complete inspection. It’s been a Madras ever since.
At this point, in June 2023, the airframe remains in disassembled storage awaiting the arrival of some new wing parts. The inner wing panels are in custom jigs with the trailing edges removed. Once the new wing parts arrive, expected later this year, the wing panels will receive some extensive work to incorporate the new components. As part of this work, more or less incidentally, the recently-issued FAA Airworthiness Directive that covers the joint between the spar chord tubes and the wing attach terminal fittings will also be satisfied. The airframe has enjoyed a thorough inspection and will be reassembled back to flying condition. The timeline remains fuzzy as there remains much work to be completed to reassemble the B-17G. After completion, it is expected to be repainted and marked in a new scheme, details of which are probably not known yet by anybody.
But, once it is flying again, it will return to be based at Mid America’s base at Mount Pleasant. According to the museum, there is no intent to have it participate in an FAA Living History Flight Experience program…i.e. the Mid America Flight Museum will not be selling rides or touring with the B-17. It will be operated by the museum as part of its extensive aircraft collection.
A short history of 44-85718: it was delivered by Lockheed on May 8, 1945, just as the European war was ending, and sent directly to storage. It was sold to the French Institut Geographique National (IGN) from a surplus yard at Altus, Oklahoma, (along with three other new B-17Gs) in late 1947, becoming F-BEEC in French civil service. It and, eventually, 13 other IGN B-17s spent the next four decades as survey aircraft on world-ranging missions. F-BEEC was finally retired in 1984 and went to the Lone Star Flight Museum in 1987. The last external vestiges of its French survey modifications are windows installed in the lower nose section just aft of the plexiglass nose, and the plexiglass nose piece itself. There are no plans by Mid America Flight Museum to return the nose section to the standard B-17G configuration, so the indicator of the prior use of the airplane will remain intact. The book Final Cut: The Post-War B-17 Flying Fortress and Survivors has a lengthy section with text and photos on the history of this specific aircraft.
