Aero Vintage Books

Here's a still from "Tora! Tora! Tora!":



Note the auxiliary windows in the windscreen - the B-17 fuselage from Greeley, CO appears to have them as well; this is now believed to be the 20th Century Fox studio plane.

My question: Which B-17s had these extra windows? B-17F 42-3374 seems to be the only other survivor that has them, but the Greeley fuselage is a G model, possibly 44-83387 - but would a plane with that serial have those windows?

Good question from Chris. Those panels were added to allow a pilot to de-ice his main windscreen or, in the worst case, see something if the main scrren was iced over. Accordiing to Peter Bowers' authoritative Fortress in the Sky, the panels were added to Douglas production at B-17G-20-DL (42-37894). Photos show Douglas-built airplanes after that block with the four-piece windscreens but by the -85 production (44-83486 and later) they seem to be gone. The Bowers' data on changes for the Douglas production doesn't include anything after the -55 production so it doesn't answer that question.

I'll have to pull some more photos and see if that reveals any more information.

I thought lockheed-vega models had this. I will defer to scott.