Aero Vintage Books

Unusual fitting in a B-17 radio compartment...... anyone have any info on it?
The original caption says it's a rocket launcher, at the 2900th CCRC which was at RAF Bovingdon, England, at the time the photo was taken.

All the best,
PB

The answer to this may have turned up thanks to SHAEF1944 over at
http://forum.armyairforces.com/tm.aspx?m=177920&high=

I'll take the liberty of re-posting most of what he's found while reading US Army in WWII, The Ordnance Department, Planning Munitions for War, page 437:

"Another scheme grew out of an Eighth Air Force request for an upward-firing rocket launcher to protect B-17 formations from planes bombing them from above. The development known by the code name SUNFLOWER SEED, was worked out in England, using a special British rocket, and a B-17 so equipped was flown to the United States for study. At the same time technicians at Wright Field evolved a somewhat similar vertical-firing installation using the American M8 rocket; this was tested at both Aberdeen and Eglin Field during the spring of 1944. The rockets behaved as the designers hoped, but the low velocity of the projectiles and the lack of flexibility in aiming them led to the conclusion that neither SUNFLOWER SEED nor its American variant would serve the intended purpose. And by September 1944, with the cessation of overhead bombing attacks against Allied bomber formations, tactical need for such a weapon disappeared. Results generally similar to those obtained with the vertical-firing rocket launchers followed when test data were assembled on a rearward-firing breech-loading 4.5 inch rocket launcher mounted in a B-17 bomber. Consequently, until scientists could develop rockets of higher velocity, even rockets with proximity fuses promised little for defensive air combat."

Wow! I never heard of that before. With the B-17's abilitly to achieve rather high altitudes , I find it hard to imagine any Axis aircraft getting above them.

I never heard this before, thanks anyway for the information... i learned a lot from this Airplane...