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B-17 gone

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williamtsullivan(at)att.n
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Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 4:43 am Post subject: B-17 gone

Sad news in this morning's paper.  The Liberty Foundation's B-17 caught fire, and made an emergency landing in a corn field near Chicago.  Totally destroyed.  All got out, with one minor injury.  It used to belong to Pratt and Whitney, and when I was a kid we used to park at the end of their runway and watch it take off.  Then it went to the air museum here in town, and was heavily damaged in the tornado of 1979.  Sold to the foundation, rebuilt, and I last saw it in Hartford last year.  It will be missed.  It was a beautiful airplane.

  

 do not archive

                                                     Bill Sullivan

                                                     Windsor Locks, Ct.

                                                     still a fan of B-17's

 [quote][b]

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Dennis Thate

Joined: 18 Nov 2010
Posts: 362

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 5:31 am Post subject: Re: B-17 gone

Here's the link 



http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/news/local/chibrknews-crews-responding-to-incident-involving-wwii-bomber-20110613,0,5339638.story



I once worked with a friend who was  a B-17 ball turret gunner because of his small size. He witnessed from his B-17 ball turret an entire fully loaded box explode into a ball of fire and disappear over France enroute to a target. That was 10 planes with 10 crew on each.

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_________________
Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute. ~Gil Stern

pj.ladd(at)btinternet.com
Guest

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 7:19 am Post subject: B-17 gone

B-17 caught fire,>>

  

 That is really bad news. There are few enough of  these machines left.  Although the box formation which the US Air Force put  such trust in proved not so effective as hoped when they went into action the B  17 was an incredible plane.

  

 I was looking round one when I was in the States  some years ago and talking to the guide who had been a B`7 gunner in the  UK.

 I said` She has the nose addition so she must have  been a mark G so you must have been stationed at Framlingham` I was right and  having established that I had some idea what I was talking about we  got  into a very interesting discussion about the war etc.  At this point a guy  about 45 with a small child intow came through the fuselage. He rapped with his  knuckles on the aluminium skin and said to the guide. `Is this all you had to  keep the bullets out"

 The  gunner looked at me and rolled his eyes  in disbelief. I shall always remember his expression.

  

 Incidentally I came across these statistics  recently

  

 276000 a/c were built in the US

  

 14000 were lost in the USA

  

 43000 lost oversea

  

 Out of that 276000 planes only (?) 23000 were lost  in actual combat

 The B 17 cost $204370. each

  

 the most produced aircraft was the Russian  Sturmovik

  

 Cheers

  

 Pat

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