Modeling the B-17 Flying Fortress

by Jeffrey Ethell, 72 pages softcover

some highlights:

* Color shot of a VB-17G in Korea

* 3 shots of SB-17Gs - including one during lifeboat deployment

* MB-17G with underwing JB-2s

* WB-17G All weather Flying Center

* B-17G transport of General Joe Cannon - Cannon Ball

* QB-17 drone

* all-black covert ops bird

* Israeli aircraft

* 3 shots of Model 299Z

* Y1B-17s

* Battle damage

Newspaper Articles and Photos:

"5 of B-17 Crew Killed In Crash In Kansas" New York Times August 13, 1948 p.16 c.3

"10 Die in Air Force B-17" New York Times October 2, 1949 p.37 c.5

"Barkley, In B-17, Misses Blimp By 50 Feet Near Capitol Airport" New York Times November 14, 1949 p.1 c.2+

"Three Die In B-17 Crash" New York Times November 8, 1951 p.60 c.1

"B-17 Search Aircraft Hits Mountain Top" New York Times January 21, 1952 p.1

Photo: B-17G N5017N as a photo-mapping aircraft. Air Pictorial October 1960 p.357

Magazine Articles & Photos
Photo: B-17 of the postwar Royal Danish Air Force Flight 13 May 1955 p.623

Photo: B-17G F-BGSQ / 44-85594 of the Institut Geographique National Air Pictorial October 1962 p.333

Frank A. Tinker "Old Warbirds Fight On" Air Classics May 1973. Two photos of a B-17 retardant bomber reengined with Rolls Royce Dart turboprops.

Photo: B-17 N5237V Air Classics March 1979 p.16-17

Eugene A. Kiley "Twenty-nine missions over Europe" Air Classics May 1983 p.16-21

"Diamondbacks over Europe: B-17s of the 99th Bomb Group, Part One" Air Enthusiast March/April 2004 p.61-67 9 photos, including a B-17 with a smashed nose following a ground collision, B-17G "Patches" of the 346th Bomb Squadron.

Mark Hembree "History You Can Model: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress" FineScale Modeler September 2007 p.32-34

Scale Models

"Shoo Shoo Baby" Scale Modeler February 1983 Interesting diorama showing the 1/48 scale Monogram kit finished as the famous Fort, in a dissambled state at Dover AFB before it was restored at flown to Dayton.

Pual Budzik "Modeling the legendary B-17F Flying Fortress" FineScale Modeler December 1989 p.42-48. Converting the 1/48 scale Monogram B-17G to the B-17F "Wabash Cannonball".

Louis Armour "Build a better Belle" FineScale Modeler January 2004 p.52-57 Combining the Revell-Monogram B-17F and B-17G kits. Interior diagrams, color 3-view

Books:
"Encyclopedia of Aircraft of World War II" General Editor: Paul Eden

p.48-61. Some highlights: SB-17G with lifeboat and H2X radar, B-17B of the USAAC Material Division, RAF B-17 AN528, color 3-view of the B-17G "Short Arm", color three-view of an RAF Fortress B. MkIII(SD).

The History of the U.S. Air Force,
by David Anderton
Color profile, page 49: B-17C in OD over Neutral Gray scheme, red center insignia, red/white rudder stripes.

Web Resources:
Although the B-17 would persist in subsidiary roles with the newly independent US Air Force long after WWII, it would also serve, in very limited numbers, as a bomber with the air force of Israel. This article provides a very interesting look at Israeli use of the Fortress, including several color profiles of the aircraft in various configurations and paint schemes.
Israeli B-17s

By April 25, 1945, the Fort's work in its original role over Europe had ended with cesation Allied strategic bombing. There would never again be vast swarms of hundreds of bombers filling the European skies with contrails - the B-17s switched to more humanitarian roles, dropping supplies to POW camps and starving civilians, and repatriating former prisoners. V-J Day would put a definitive end to the Fort as a bomber (at least in US service) but remarkably, examples of what was basically an outmoded design would last in secondary roles for many years to come.

However, although some Forts had a future, there was no need for the postwar USAAF (USAF from 1947) to retain masses of war-weary, obsolete bombers. Thousands upon thousands of aircraft suddenly became little more than repositories of high value raw materials, and many B-17s were ferried back home to end their days in vast salvage lots operated by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

Being well-supplied with B-24/PB4Ys, the US Navy did not operate the Fort in large numbers, but towards the end of the war was supplied with several dozen B-17Gs as PB-1s. A total of 31 aircraft were given Project Cadillac APS-20 radars for use as PB-1W AEW aircraft, and these served until replaced by Lockheed Warning Stars in the early 1950s. The US Coast Guard was supplied with 17 PB-1G long-range SAR aircraft, and the last of these were only phased out in the fall of 1959 as Lockheed Hercules replacements arrived.

Among the most specialized Forts were the Fortress Mk.II/III (SD) of the RAF's No.100 (Special Duties) Group - the "special duties" of these aircraft dealt with spoofing and jamming German radars and communications across the spectrum. Clad in sinister black undersurface camo, the SDs were liberally covered with all manner of aerials for systems to blind German ground and airborne radars, and jam fighter direction channels. They could also perform ground mapping with the H2S radar carruied in a large chin radome, and lay chaff ("window" in British paralance) barriers.

An unlikely B-17 operator was Germany, which ran a very organized effort to salvage aircraft that had crashed in occupied Europe. Most of this operation was to provide the Reuch with high-quality raw materials, but numerous Allied aircraft ended up in Luftwaffe hands in flyable or repairable condition.

Germany was not the only Axis power to exploit captured B-17s, as Japan had managed to get its hands on the remains of a number of B-17Ds when Clark Field in the Philippines was taken in late December 1941. A single B-17D was resurrected from the scrap, and was joined the following year by a pair of B-17Es rebuilt from abandoned carcasses on Java.

Even after the end of the war, the Fort had actually not dropped its final bomb over Europe, as several Fortresses took part in the joint USAAF/RAF Project Ruby in 1946, an effort to test the efficacy of penetration bombs against former German targets under controlled conditions. While the B-29s and Lancasters involved in the project struck at the U-boat pens at Farge with Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs, the B-17s dropped the British developed Disney Bomb, a 16.5-foot long weapon that used solid rockets to accelerate the 4,500lb projectile (500lbs of which was the explosive warhead) to supersonic speed. The Disneys had been used in anger during bthe last months of the war, and were carried externally as their length prohibited internal carriage.