Always one of my favorite threads of the year!

@guns762

F-19 Model Kit obtained for you.  1/48 scale, Testors Italeri, 1986.  Will send along as soon as it arrives next week.

Making a display bomb sight that the students could try might be fun. Use maybe 3d digital mapping of WW2 cities to look through. Might be too much to pay out though.   Doubt the math class wants to traingulate navigation for the displays

Want to make sure i'm bookmarked for the hoodie sale...

If you do that, make it maneuvering on a Chinese J-50, their 6th generation fighter. Could have a weapon bay open with a missile launch underway. It can be static, and the missile could be further away so it doesn't look too much like the F-22.



This probably isn't an accurate representation, but all these 6th gen fighters seem notional at this point.

Could also outfit the NGAD with a couple of "loyal wingmen" unmanned drones. If you do, that could be launching on the J-50.

When you start building your image reference library, for WWII aviation art, I'd recommend anything by Robert Taylor. I have two of his prints in my office. For inside the aircraft, Gil Cohen did some great paintings 'Almost Home' cockpit view and hands down the best depiction of inside the nose of a B-17 is his 'The Regensburg Mission'. That print is rare, but they did a cool jigsaw puzzle of it that can be still be found. There are of course other great artists to pull from.

I've got the photoshop master for a poster displaying the insignias of all 16 war time US Air Forces that I did about 15 yrs ago. Will try and forward to you.

Yes they did.
I have 6 of the raptor from the year before, but only 2 of the dragon.

When you're deciding on which version of the B-17, take note of what years the variant was in service. Up to December of 1943, they were painted in a two tone paint job, olive drab on top, flat gray on the bottom. After January 1944, they weren't painted, just buffed aluminum. With small patches of olive in front of the cockpit and on the inboard sides of the engine nacelles to cut down glare.

Before January 1944:



January 1944 and on:

Italeri makes a kit of that one, but its $49 most places.

http://www.303rdbg.com/360wilson.html

My father-in-law, Captain Fred Wilson, (the tallest officer standing in the photos) flew 30 missions. His last one on the day before D Day.

Funny story: He was chosen to fly the airbase general and staff to observe the invasion over Normandy on D Day. When the general wanted him to fly lower to get a better look, Fred said, in his deep southern drawl " I'm sorry general, but I am the captain of this ship. I'm not going to have my friends and family read in my home town newspaper that after completing my 30 missions, that I died doing such a dang fool thing."

After the war, Fred and his wife Shirley were in New York City getting into cab. The door opens and out steps Jimmy Doolittle. Fred introduces himself and they have a brief conversation. Fred says, "Shirley, this is Jimmy Doolittle." Shirley says, "Sure Fred, and I'm Grace Kelly. Now lets get in the cab!"

With a donation in his name, I'll send a copy of his mission diary.

https://b17flyingfortress.de/en/b17/42-97254-iza-vailable-too/
This was his favorite ship. We had a scale model made with this nose art as a Christmas gift one year.

If you're going to do E models for the nose, then that's a very interesting period. They fly the very first mission over Europe on 8/17/1942. The B-17Es are assigned to the 97th Bomb Group and her 4 squadrons. They're the planes we went to war with and it was quickly understood that improvements were needed. The Es are obsoleted by late spring 1943. The models remaining in theater are sent back stateside as war weary trainers or handed over to the incoming bomb groups as hacks.

The Pacific is a different ballgame. There were B-17s there of course, but the extreme distances and direction of the war limited their buildup. The war in Europe took priority and that's where the effort primarily focused for the AAF.

It's a fascinating time period back home. A fairly small pre-war force, the Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1945 grows exponentially. New aircraft rolling off the line with a constant inline engineering changes happening monthly and crews training all over the country. It took 10 men to man a B-17 at the start of the war. That's a ton of personnel going through training at different paces. 1.5 yrs to make a Navigator vs months to train a door gunner.

I know the story of one B-17E.

B-17E #41-9043 'Peggy-D'.  She flies the very first European mission with the 97th BG, 342nd BS, in August of 1942. She gets passed over to the 92nd BG in Sept 42. By July of 43 she's assigned the newly arrived 381st BG, 534th BS, as a hack. Her fighting days are over and she's used for all sorts of non-combat tasks. The squadron strips her paint, guns, unneeded equipment, and fairs over all the exposed ports. Slicked and lightened up, she's fast. They rename her 'Little Rock-ette' partly after the squadron commander who hailed from Arkansas. The retired fortress was used to observe formation assembly and many other duties. One sad occasion she ferried back too many bodies from an aircraft into terrain incident (on the Isle of Man) when hostilities were essentially over.

My connection to her is through my grandfather. In April of 1944 his B-17 is returning from a mission over the continent. The gear mechanism for their landing gear is shot. To land safely, they need to drop the ball turret and land on her belly. Otherwise, with gear up, and ball turret still present, a hard landing pushes the turret mount up through the spine of the aircraft and you write-off another B-17. Dropping the ball turret is as simple as disconnecting some fittings and removing 4 bolts. Doesn't work so good when you don't have that specific wrench on board (weight being a constant struggle it was left behind). After some drama, the squadron commander goes up in Little Rock-ette. They fly in tight formation with Little Rock-ette above and slightly ahead of my grandfather's aircraft. A bag is lowered on rope filled with the right tools and ballast. With careful coordination, they manage to pass the bag through the radio hatch of the stricken B-17. The crew flew out over the channel, dropped the ball, and landed wheels up with no hands lost.

Unfortunately, my grandfather and his crew were lost a few missions later over Germany. The bellied in aircraft was repaired at a depot and returned to the squadron about 90 days later. She was lost shortly thereafter near Berlin in a mid-air collision. Two aircraft lost and 20 crewmembers. Such was combat in the skies over Europe.  

B-17E #41-9043 Peggy-D / Little Rock-ette that flew the first American bomber mission over Europe, survived and was eventually scrapped after the war.

Still wearing mine!

I try to save my Door Gunner shirt for trips to get a haircut on post.

Wearing mine today.

In on this. Appreciate your projects each year and have a shirt from almost every year.  Keep up the good work.  

Having not commented before, let me just say that I've always enjoyed your (and your students') efforts and will be watching. Carry on.

Old 666 was a B-17E and has a good story behind it. The Fat Electrician did a video about it a while ago. I won't link it because it has some profanity in it, although I'm sure your students have heard much worse.

My father in law said that there was a time that they just stopped painting them. It saved 2000 pounds IIRC. Maybe you can expound on this.

This,  and t shirts!!

He was exactly right. They saved a ton of weight and time by flying bare metal aircraft. Plus, when bare metal aircraft started arriving in theater, during the Spring of 1944, they were flying 1,000 plane raids. The concept of bomber camouflage was long outdated. The best they could hope for was target misdirection. Head one direction, turn and strike something else. But with a thousand plane formation, there was a lot of time between first over target and last over target. The fighter reaction could and did catch up if they weren't in the right position to start with.

@guns762

Hey guns, I have a jacket that I don’t wear anymore, if you like I’ll donate it to the cause.
Let me know!
jarhead13

It’s a “members only” brand but it’s a quality jacket. I got it back in the 1980’s.

Already? Man... time flies.

Look forward to following and the t-shirt sale as always.

I’ll send it out this week.

Missed Page 1 and was constant looking for it.

Excellent Non-Fiction book about the B-17 was written by Martin Caiden.  Good read if you can find it.  It has the model differences both internally and externally.

I'll eventually be sending in My Contribution.  Want to see some shocked kiddie's faces.

By the way:  Finally Got Last Year Source book in:


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