The crash occurred just minutes after the vintage plane restored as a replica of the Nine-0-Nine B-17 that flew 140 combat missions in World War II had taken off from Bradley Airport on Oct 2. The plane's technician, five passengers and an airport employee in the de-icing building suffered varying degrees of injuries.
The four-engine aircraft was notorious among aircrews. Officially designated the "Liberator," the square shaped B-24 could easily turn into a death trap. It was hard to fly with its stiff and heavy controls, and so earned its name by its crews as the "Flying Coffin."
50 caliber rounds used in U.S. bombers. First off, on a typical mission a B-17 took off with 4 tons of bombs, 11 tons of fuel and 1.3 tons of . 50-caliber ammunition for its 13 machine guns. (In other words, most of what the B-17 carried was fuel, not bombs.)
The B-17 could carry up to 8000 pounds of bombs, depending on the mission, so if the load was 1000 lb bombs, obviously, it could carry 8 — 500 lb bombs, 16 and so on.
The Dieppe raid
The largest single-day air battle of World War II was also an unmitigated disaster for the Allied forces.More than half of these died in the continental U.S. The U.S. lost 65,164 planes during the war, but only 22,948 in combat.
They flew 5% less than B-17's but had 105% more fatalities and 85% more wrecks. Even though it had less defensive fire and high altitude speed than the B-17, the British felt that the B-24 was still superior to the German bomber. Thus, they preferred the B-24 and even named her the "Liberator".
— A World War II-era B-17 bomber with 13 people aboard crashed and burned Wednesday at New England's second-busiest airport after encountering mechanical trouble on takeoff. A state official said at least seven were killed.
However, when the aircraft leaves the runway, in order to get a lower angle of attack, the nose is pointed down. Presumably, during the design and development phase, they worked out that the best in-flight trade-off between drag from the wings and drag from the nose-down fuselage was a couple of degrees nose-down.
The aircraft was one of the first United States Army Air Forces B-17 heavy bombers to complete 25 combat missions. The aircraft and crew then returned to the United States to sell war bonds.
Over the course of the war, B-29s flew 20,000 sorties and dropped 200,000 tonnes (180,000 tons) of bombs. B-29 gunners were credited with shooting down 27 enemy aircraft.
Of the 3,970 built, 26 survive in complete form today, 24 of which reside in the United States, and two of which are airworthy.
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
| B-17 Flying Fortress |
|---|
| Primary users | United States Army Air Forces Royal Air Force |
| Produced | 1936–1945 |
| Number built | 12,731 |
| Unit cost | US$238,329 (1945) US$2.7 million (in 2018 dollars) |
A B-17 will easily burn 200 gallons of fuel per hour, plus about 10 gallons of oil per hour. Consumables and wear items cost an estimated $3,000 per flight hour.
Yes you can. You could probably by just about any civilian aircraft that is sitting in a boneyard but for military aircraft? Yes, you could probably by the older jets especially since some probably already have their weapon systems removed. But yea buying something from the boneyard is fair game.
Nine-O-Nine was a Boeing B-17G-30-BO Flying Fortress heavy bomber, of the 323rd Bomb Squadron, 91st Bomb Group, that completed 140 combat missions during World War II, believed to be the Eighth Air Force record for most missions, without loss to the crews that flew her.
(CNN) Seventy-five years after its last bombing run in World War II, the newly restored Memphis Belle is on display at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Ohio.
They were built by Boeing in Seattle (BO), Douglas Aircraft Co. (DL) in Long Beach, CA and Vega Aircraft Corp. (VE) in Burbank, CA. Following the end of World War II, the B-17 was quickly phased out of use as a bomber and the Army Air Forces retired most of its fleet.
Memphis Belle is a fictionalization of the 1944 documentary Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress by director William Wyler, about the 25th and last mission of an American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, the Memphis Belle, based in England during World War II.
Out of the 20,000+ Spitfires that were built from 1938 to 1948, today, just a handful of these (around 60) are still airworthy.
None are in active military service. Of the 19,256 B-24, PB4Y, LB-30 and other model variants in the Liberator family produced, thirteen complete examples survive today, two of which are airworthy. Eight of the thirteen aircraft reside in the United States.
