Aero Vintage Books

I was browsing through the bay when I saw this photo. From the window configuration it has to be an "E"...right? But what E was flying in the US in 1984? Is this the Paul Allen machine?

Here is the link....I hope this is allowed!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MC-PHOTO-ahu-66 ... 56524b0647

This would appear to be B-17G 44-83575 N93012 that now flies as "909." This airframe came off the nuclear test range in the mid 1960s and had non-standard nose windows after Aircraft Specialties rebuilt it as an air tanker. It has since been changed back to a "standard" B-17G nose configuration, admittedly a loose and moving standard.

For ease of use and posterity, here is a saved version of the photo:



Probably get in trouble but it will stay visible even after the auction is over. Let's consider this free advertising for the seller, shall we?

Hey Scott,

One problem, the other photos all show a standard tail gunners position, NOT a Chyanne tail gunners position, which this airframe had? So does this mean that the tail gunners position came from another aircraft that globe air had. And if so, which aircraft?

Something else, see this close up of the nose. There is a patch but it looks like the nose turret was patched into a homogeneous nose. And the nose sheet metal shows a clear demarcation line right at the cockpit.

Pics at Yucca flat show the starboard cheek gun position still there after the rebuild. This nose shows that the internal structure to support the "new' window is there, rather than simply sheet metaled over. That seems like a lot of work for an aircraft that was to be a workhorse. Why install a small window, when you could have sheet metaled it over or put a plexiglass insert in; like lots of other aircraft. Also there is a navigators dome on 575 when she was being repaired, But these pics clearly show no navigators dome. Why go through all the trouble to remove it? E's didn't have a Navigators dome did they?

All in all, it sure does look like someone took parts from an E and grafted them onto.

Thoughts? Baugher list an E being used to put another aircraft back together, mentioned in my earlier post. Could this aircraft have had the nose tail gunners position used on 575?

It is a "G," 44-83575 to be exact. Aircraft Specialties mixed and matched as needed. See also page 141 of Final Cut, 4th Edition (for those lucky enough to have it) and the photo taken in August 1985 when it was an active air tanker. The photo clearly depicts the nose window configuration with non standard pitot tubes and VHF NAV antenna above the cockpit. As for the "stinger" style tail gunner position? As noted, parts were mixed and matched. If I recall correctly, the stinger tail ended up on N3193G (Yankee Lady) and then went to 44-85718 (Thunderbird).

P.S. If everybody who really needed a copy of Final Cut would buy one, the world would be a happier place and my RV-8 would be just about done.

..Ok...guys...I wasn't disputing the ID as 575 or that it is a G. Rather that it had received some pretty extensive modifications AFTER it was flown out of the Test Zone.

So I had two questions; one was this rebuilt after it was flown out with E parts? Because the pics on page 141 have repairs that don't match pics of the aircraft taken just 6 years later; as shown on the Collings website. Yeah, they both have the same pitot tube. Ok. But thats it. The patches don't match up where the port cheek was, or where the starboard cheek gun position still was in the May 1965 photo. Also in the 1971 photo it already had the stinger position; after it was being stripped for parts.

Ok, it was mixed and matched. But thats the question, isn't it. Was the nose grafted from another airframe and the pitot tube and it's plumbing simply placed on the new nose? At the very least the nose was,almost, completely reskinned with new internal structure.

Not intending to get testy...no offense intended. But, from what I can determine, 44-83575 was flown out of the lake in 1965 and pretty much sat at Falcon Field as a parts source for the better part of a decade or more. There is a photo that shows it with the vertical stabilizer from sister nuclear test ship (and parts source) 44-83722 as it sat derelict. I would suspect that when the rebuilding finally came in the late 1970s, the top part of the nose was reskinned as it was pretty banged up from the testing. Why the smaller windows were installed remains a mystery: structural, parts on hand, the guy who worked on it liked small windows, etc. From what I understand much of the interior was stripped out, presumably for weight savings, and it was probably one of the more customized B-17s for air tanking. The tail stinger moved around a bit as it was on several of the B-17s.

As a point of interest, a good part of the new B-17Gs off the production lines had the same nose arrangement...all small windows. The larger cheek windows to accommodate the guns was initially a modification center addition. It would appear the thinking was that the chin turret would finally solve the nose armament issue, so the window arrangement reverted to that of the B-17E. The lack of hand held nose guns was evidently missed by combat crews and navigators without machine guns to shoot. The later Gs like the late production Douglas airplanes, of which 44-83575 is one, had the large cheek windows installed at the factory. However, I would imagine the internal nose structure would lend itself to having the smaller window installed without much rework....I'll leave it to an expert on the internal nose structure to chime in here...

No offensive taken Scott. I was a detective for eight years and my mind is always looking at things in a slightly different way than most people. If you don't ask questions you can't get answers. Even if most of the time the answer is pretty simple.