The first phase of a project to restore B-17G 44-83690 has been completed by the Museum of Aviation at Robins AFB, Georgia. The museum held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, August 18, to open the aircraft for display as part of a larger commemoration of the 80th Anniversary of the Eighth Air Force’s August 1943 raid on Schweinfurt, Germany. The B-17 was transferred to the Museum of Aviation by the NMUSAF in 2015 after many years of outdoor display in Indiana. Since 2015, the museum workers have brought it back to an “off the production line” condition and it will now be safely displayed inside the museum. Further restoration work will continue on the interior of the B-17 as time and funding allow.

B-17G 44-83690 was built by Douglas and delivered to the AAF on May 9, 1945. It was stored in unused condition until 1950, when it was modified for use as a drone controller DB-17G.

It was later modified to the DB-17P configuration and, after 1957, based at Patrick AFB, Florida, to control QB-17s targets flown in the Long Range Proving Ground test range offshore Florida. 44-83690 was retired to Davis-Monthan AFB in the summer of1959. It was among the few remaining DB-17Ps in service when retired, and it was then declared excess to USAF needs in August 1960. 44-83690 was subsequently transferred for static display at Bunker Hill AFB near Peru, Indiana.

I was recently contacted by Arnal Cook, a retired U.S. Navy Commander, who related a story about his father, Charles T. Cook who, in 1960, was a USAF Captain serving at Bunker Hill AFB. I’ll provide the information here that Arnal provided to me, edited slightly for context:

“My Dad was CO of the Aircraft Intermediate Repair Depot at Bunker Hill AFB in 1960 for the B-47 aircraft he flew for SAC.  Some of the 1960 Master and Senior Sergeants had been junior Tech Sergeants 15 years earlier in 1945 on the B-17s.  So, my Dad flew some of them and an extra air crew out to Davis-Monthan and they gave them “3 or4” ‘stored’ B-17s there and built my Dad a flying B-17 he flew back to Bunker Hill AFB.  He had flown B-24s out of England in 1945 (14 Missions) but “(he) had always wanted to fly a B-17.”  So, they built him this one!!  I have always called it a “Frankenstein” B-17, given there were parts of 3 or 4 aircraft combined to make this one fly in 1960 to Bunker Hill AFB.  Our Dad flew it from Arizona to Indiana.”

This is an interesting bit of information about 44-83690. My only comment is that this DB-17P was only a year out of active USAF service and was probably in pretty good shape as it was. In 1960, there were only a very few remaining B-17s in storage at Davis-Monthan. By that point, many had been either sold at auction to civil owners or farmed out to various USAF bases for display. According to this account, though, parts were mixed and matched from those few remaining B-17s to make one good B-17 for a ferry flight to Bunker Hill. So, Capt. Cook got to fly his B-17 on what ended up being its last flight.

Upon arrival, it was placed on outdoor static display at the base, where it remained for the next 55 years. It was subjected to the weather extremes of Indiana winters and suffered accordingly. A base museum gestated around the displayed bomber. The base was renamed Grissom AFB in 1968 (after the death of astronaut Virgil Grissom) and the Grissom Air Park absorbed the displayed aircraft. Eventually the Heritage Museum Foundation was organized to maintain and display the various aircraft, but the B-17 suffered through various attempts of restoration and neglect through the years. By 2015 it was displayed in pretty good exterior condition as the Miss Liberty Belle, but the NMSUAF nonetheless decided to reallocate the B-17 to the Museum of Flight at Robins AFB in Georgia that year.

The airframe was disassembled and moved from Indiana to Georgia, and it was in pretty poor condition when it arrived. The interior had been stripped out earlier to support other USAF B-17 restorations and, though covered by fairly fresh paint, the airframe itself had a great deal of corrosion and damage when examined closely.

For specifics on the restoration project undertaken by the Museum of Aviation, I’ll happily refer you to the June 2023 update by Austin Kubacak published by Vintage Aviation News.

However, I will note that at some point while displayed at Grissom, the engines were made inoperable by, most likely, an enterprising base commander who ordered cement to be poured down the engine carburetors. By one account, the action was sparked by an Army surplus tank at some unnamed display location that someone thought to fuel up and take for a unauthorized spin. The resulting mess engendered an order that military equipment static displays had to be made inoperable. Where a magneto removal might have worked, concrete definitely did work. In any event, the Museum of Flight received the four engines removed from the Memphis Belle (B-17F 41-24485) when it was being restored by the NMUSAF. To expedite the restoration of the Memphis Belle, zero timed engines and props were fitted, and the engines removed were made available for installation on 44-83690.

It should also be noted, by the by, that the history of this and all the surviving B-17s is told in Final Cut: The Post-War B-17 Flying Fortress and Survivors available right here on this website.