Unfortunately, it can’t really be called a surviving B-17 because there is so little left of it. Nonetheless, the trail of VB-17G 44-83316 through post-war USAF service through to its subsequent dissection into smaller and smaller pieces is one I think is of interest. After becoming part of an aborted USAF base museum, it became a bit of TV star in the Twelve O’Clock High series in the mid-1960s. Later, as just a fuselage hulk, parts of it have been used on two completely separate occasions to inject life into one of the two unique B-17 five-engine test-beds, 44-85813, and parts of it made their way into the at least one other B-17 restoration project. Even now, the few remaining parts of this long-suffering airplane are being used to help create a brand new B-17F.

AAF and USAF Service of 44-83316

44-83316 was built at Douglas-Long Beach and accepted on February 2, 1945. It was slated for overseas duty and was flown to Grenier Field, New Hampshire, then departing the U.S. for the U.K. on February 19, 1945. The records are a bit sketchy, but it appears that 44-83316 was stored in a replacement depot and never activated to operational status with the 8th Air Force. After V-E Day, it remained in storage, most likely as part of the occupation air force in Germany. By early 1948, it was assigned to the 61st Troop Carrier Group at Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt, and evidently used for administrative transport. By June 1948, it had been reassigned to the 7909th Base Unit at Tulln Air Base in Austria. In late 1948, it was redesignated as a VB-17G, indicating modification and assignment as a VIP transport for USAF Europe. It remained in service for various units in Europe through the end of 1952, and then being assigned to the 4676th Air Defense Group at Fairfax Field, Kansas with the Air Defense Command.

It moved with the unit to at nearby Grandview AFB, Missouri, in February 1954, where it remained for the balance of its USAF utilization. In 1955, the 4676th Air Defense Group was reestablished as the 328th Fighter Group at Grandview. 44-83316 continued with the unit until December 1956 when it was withdrawn from service and placed into storage at Davis-Monthan AFB. It remained in storage through April 1959 when it was moved to Norton AFB at San Bernardino, California, for assignment, as per the record card, to a museum.

Aircraft Collection at Norton AFB

There is little verifiable information about a museum being established at Norton AFB in the mid-1950s. Anecdotal information suggest that the base commander wanted a base museum and began gathering aircraft. Many came from nearby Edwards AFB, made available by the end of test programs, while others were gathered from various sources. How official this museum plan actually was is, at this point, lost to history. However, it seems that these aircraft were gathered in a corner of the base more or less in storage. Some were made available for movie props for several Hollywood productions. It is known than F-86A 48-263, one of the Norton aircraft, appeared in two films…Bombers B-52 and The Hunters. In any event, 44-83316 was in this collection through 1964.

Once again, anecdotal information tells that the base commander moved on as all base commanders eventually do, and his replacement was not interested in having an airplane museum. What happened at this point, though, is a bit confusing as it appears that base personnel were told to get rid of the aircraft collection…literally make it disappear. The word went out to local museums that these aircraft were now available…just come and get them. The timeline is a bit obscure, but it would appear this was in the latter part of 1964.

Tallmantz Aviation Expected to Receive 44-83316

At this point, Tallmantz Aviation at nearby Orange County Airport was intent on obtaining the B-17 for its collection, as well as a good number of the other aircraft from Norton. Tallmantz mechanics showed up and inspected the B-17 and found it near airworthy. They removed the control surfaces for recovering, intending to come back and fly the airplane out.

In the ensuing weeks, however, things changed. Film studio 20th Century Fox and QM Productions were in the midst of filming season one of the TV series Twelve O’Clock High at both the film studio and on location at nearby Chino Airport. The producers had one B-17 under contract, that being ex DB-17P 44-83684, then on loan from the USAF to Ed Maloney’s The Air Museum at Ontario, California. This B-17 became the famed Piccadilly Lily of the TV series.

However, the studio wanted more B-17 stuff, evidently. Studio technicians arrived at Norton and stripped the cockpit of instruments the fuselage of various parts and equipment. Several accounts suggest they wanted to equip a studio cockpit mockup, though this is a bit puzzling as the studio was already employing a studio mockup based upon B-17G 44-83387. It could be that they wanted to better equip the remaining parts of the studio fuselage mockup but, for whatever reason, when Tallmantz mechanics came back to bring 44-83316 back to life, they found a largely stripped out hulk. (This is the account told by Tallmantz Aviation president Frank Pine in a 1978 interview and somewhat confirmed by some written documentation.)

44-83316 Used as Twelve O’Clock High Set Prop

What transpired next also remains a mystery. Sometime in the months that followed, most likely in the summer of 1965, the wings were removed from 44-83316, probably to allow overland travel, and discarded at Norton AFB. One account has the wings moving on to an air tanker operator, but nothing has surfaced yet to add any further information about the fate of the wings. There is also a good chance they were just scrapped at Norton.

The fuselage was moved to Chino Airport to be used as a set prop for the filming of the TV series. Because it lacked wings, the fuselage was mounted on, reportedly, surplus B-47 outrigger landing gear to approximate the profile of a B-17 on its landing gear. It was then strategically placed in the background of various scenes as set dressing. Usually, the studio-built control tower hid the lack of wings in the completed scenes, but the aft fuselage showed up in close-up scenes also.

It carried the bogus tail number of “863” (later, expanded to “11863” and made its first appearance in Season 2, Episode 7 (Show Me A Hero, I’ll Show You a Bum) originally broadcast on October 25, 1965. The episode was most likely filmed in September 1965, so that provides a bit of a timeframe for when 44-83316 was added to the studio set at Chino. It had a more prominent role in Season 3, Episode 1 (Gauntlet of Fire, in color) when it is supposedly destroyed in post-crash landing fire and explosion. In actuality, some airliner wings were placed near the fuselage with other random parts scattered about, and through camera angles and technical cleverness, the B-17 fuselage is seen to explode but was, in the best Hollywood way, relatively undamaged.

From all available accounts, there was no transfer of custody or ownership or any other paperwork that followed along with the USAF providing the B-17 to the studio. As noted earlier, the base commander wanted the airplanes gone and possession became nine tenths of ownership. Twelve O’Clock High continued in production through late 1966, with the last episode being broadcast on January 13, 1967.

After production wrapped, the B-17 fuselage lay seemingly abandoned in a corner of the Chino Airport for more than a year. Just what does one do with a B-17 fuselage hulk?

44-85813 and a New Forward Fuselage

Enter from stage right a B-17 that needed a serious nose job. This would be B-17G 44-85813, one of two heavily modified B-17s used for engine test programs in the post-war years. The primary modification done to 44-85813 at the Boeing-Wichita plant in 1946 was the removal of 47 inches of structure between the cockpit and station 4, the bulkhead between the forward fuselage and the bomb-bay. The cockpit was essentially moved four feet aft to provide adequate room and balance for the installation of test engines in the nose. 44-85813 was used for a series of tests between 1947 and 1965 with the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. Initially, it was bailed by the USAF to Curtiss-Wright for the tests, but in 1957 the airplane was sold to Curtiss-Wright for further test programs and continued to fly as N6694C. The primary engine tested using 44-85813 were various versions of the Wright R-3350, an 18-cylinder behemoth that, at its pinnacle of development, produced 3,700 horsepower. The dry weight of the engine came in north of 2,600 pounds, thus the movement of the cockpit to compensate for the weight in the nose.

In any event, Curtiss-Wright wrapped up its use of the unusual B-17 in 1966 and in December of that year, sold it to Ewing Aviation Company of San Ramon, California. It evidently saw little use until August 1969 when air tanker operator Arnold Kolb and Black Hills Aviation got involved. Black Hills Aviation was, among other things, an air tanker outfit based at Spearfish, South Dakota. And though 44-85813 was technically airworthy with an bulbous ferry nose attached, it was in no condition to be operated as an air tanker. It needed to be modified back to the standard B-17G configuration and thus needed a nose job. 44-85813 was ferried to Spearfish and its new base.

Meanwhile, in 1968, Kolb purchased the derelict fuselage of 44-83316 and put it on a trailer and brought it also to Spearfish.

June 1970 maintenance records in the FAA N6694C file show that “73 inches of nose section from station 1 to 2D installed, also new nose bubble” and, by the way, “48 inch section from station 3F to station 4 also installed.” Thus, the cockpit was moved back to the way Boeing intended it using structure from 44-83316 from the bomb-bay bulkhead forward.

N6694C as an Air Tanker

44-85813 then embarked on a successful career as Tanker C12 until April 16, 1980, when it was badly damaged in a takeoff accident at Bear Pen, North Carolina. The resulting wreckage was essentially bulldozed into the woods and left where it lay. Airplane restorer Tom Reilly obtained the remains in the late 1980s and transported it to his base at Kissimmee, Florida. Parts from 44-85813 went into several B-17 restoration projects over the next few years.

Remaining Parts of 44-83316

Meanwhile the remaining parts of 44-83316 consisting of the fuselage from the bomb-bay to the tail gun enclosure, ended up in the hands of aircraft collector Kermit Weeks. The remaining structure of 44-83316 was in pretty rough shape at this point, but it was still identifiable as a B-17, sort of. Weeks also had the wreckage of another B-17, SB-17G 44-83722, and that of crashed air tanker 44-83542 (N9324Z), and he placed all these B-17 parts in storage at the Aero Trader store yard in the Anza desert of Southern California. Reilly eventually purchased these two airframes from Weeks to create the makings of a single B-17 restoration using the parts from all three partial airframes.

In 2005, the late Jerry Shiffer of Urbana, Ohio, purchased the B-17 project from Tom Reilly, and the Champaign Lady B-17 project was born. In the ensuing years, the Shiffer family has continued moving forward on the reconstruction of this B-17. As this airplane came together, the forward fuselage and outer wing panels came from 44-83722. The inner wing panels are coming from 44-85813, and some of the aft fuselage is coming from 44-83316.

Bits and pieces from other B-17s are also being wound into the restoration project. Because 44-85813 has an established civil history as a registered airframe, it has become the identity of the airplane, so it would seem that 44-83316, which gave its forward fuselage to 44-85813 in 1970, has now completely been absorbed by 44-85813.

Ray Moore and Lucky Thirteen

But not entirely. Parts of 44-83316, particularly the center section between Stations 4 and 5 and parts of the aft fuselage have made it into the hands of Ray Moore at Asheville, North Carolina. Much of the remaining structure is more useful as pattern parts, but some of it may still end up in the Lucky Thirteen B-17F construction project that Moore is working on. Thus, even though 44-83316 ceased to be identifiable as a B-17decades ago, parts and pieces of it have survived and and are still proving useful to the B-17 world.

One Other Part of 44-83316 on Display

And, one final note…the vertical stabilizer from 44-83316, with the last vestiges of its Twelve O’Clock High studio paint and an identifiable USAF serial number apparent, is in the collection of Commemorative Air Force’s Arizona Base at Mesa, Arizona. Perhaps it also will end up on a B-17 at some point in the future.