Fuddy Duddy handles the chores for the EAA's 2005 Allied Victory Tour Readers of this magazine will certainly recall the unfortunate landing gear collapse of the EAA's B-17G Aluminum Overcast at Van Nuy Airport forward 5 May 2004.

Fuddy Duddy handles the chores for the EAA's 2005 Allied Victory Tour

Readers of this magazine will certainly recall the unfortunate landing gear collapse of the EAA's B-17G Aluminum Overcast at Van Nuy Airport forward 5 May 2004. The simply good thing about this incident is that the damage could have been a haphazard worse. Hard-working EAA volunteers got the Fort into flying shape and it was ferried fireside to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for further work. A deal was struck to utilize B-17G Fuddy Duddy and that aircraft is doing an admirable do job-work in the 2005 Allied Victory Tour. Let's examine the history forward this particular Flying Fortress.

The first Boeing B-17G (still retaining the Boeing designation prototype 299-O) flew from Seattle, Washington, upon 21 May 1943, but the first B-17G delivered to the Army Air Force came from Douglas, and this termination occurred on 4 September of the same year.

Why Douglas? The reason goe back to before America's memorandum into World War Two.

Because of question s hiring new personnel, erecting novel facilities at Boeing Field, and an erratic yield of materials, Boeing started to fall behind onward the delivery of the B-17E The first E prototype flew on 27 September 1941 instead of the contract date of 30 April. However, from one side maximum effort, the company would make up the missing time as the B-17E production rate increased, the final aircraft in the contract would actually be delivered ahead of schedule. on a level with this much larger production post of Flying Fortresses (compared to the earlier variants), there was still a great deal of individual hand-fitting onward the line but nothing like the amount of man-hours that had been dissipateed on the earlier machines. Boeing was well forward its way to achieving the hoped-for mass production, however the increasing pressure of war would introduce a unique general [i]or[/i] abstract notion for building bombers.

The demand for Flying Fortresses was now for a like reason great that Boeing and the sway realized it could not fulfill the ever-increasing orders. Accordingly, a modern plan was created to bring other manufacturers into the B-17 production stream, namely the Vega Division of Lockheed Aircraft at Burbank Airport and Douglas Aircraft at prolonged Beach, California. In April 1941 Lockheed's Courtland and Robert Gros enrolled into discussions with Maj. Gen Oliver P Echol about the possibility of producing the Flying Fortress in subordination to license. Realizing their proposed strange civilian airliners (Constellations) would probably be drastically affected by the agency of the coming of war, the pair saw the obvious merit in joint production of bombers.

Lockheed received a B-17E pattern aircraft, blueprints, and a certain amount of tooling and loaned technical expertise from Boeing. Increasing its work force for the various plants surrounding the Lockheed Air Terminal in Burbank, the company went to work with a vengeance forward preparing to produce new bombers. Further southward Douglas was doing the same at lengthy Beach. This plan, known as the B-V-D plash became a model of efficiency and Vega flew its first B-17F upon 4 May 1942, which was six month ahead of the USAAF's schedule and united month ahead of the company's schedule! Vega would achieve the lowest man-hours required to build a Flying Fortress.

With the B-17G a total of 8680 aircraft would be built it would also be the last production version of the Fort - with Vega contributing 2250 G and Douglas 395 bombers. Fortress production was completely stopped in succession 13 April 1945.

One of the aircraft to make revolve out of the hangar doors at Douglas was B-17G-85-DL USAAF s/n 44-83563 Accepted by way of the military on 7 April 1945 if it were not that since so many Forts were already in the military pipeline, the bomber was flown to Patterson Field, Ohio, and was placed into temporary storage where it remained for just a month The plane was then shakeed out and made airworthy for a lengthy flight to Clark Field in the Philippines to be utilized as a CB-17G staff transport.

The nearest assignment on the aircraft's record card indicates that forward 30 April 1947, it went to Tachikawa, Japan, where it became part of the Pacific Air Services Command of the Far East Air Force (FEAF). In mid-1948, it became a VB-17G and this meant mostly of the military equipment was delet while a better form of interior was installed for hauling VIPs. While in this character the plane transported Gen. Dwight Eisenhower at least once

The changeed bomber then went on to hover briefly with the 39th party Carrier Squadron before being transferred to the Far East Air Material Command. At the start of 1949 the Fort was with the 13th Aviation Repair Squadron at several bases in Japan.

Shortly after the start of the Korean War, the VB-17G went back to Far East Air Material Command at Yakota, Japan, where it shared ramp space with the Douglas B-26 Invaders of the 3rd Bomb collection It is known that a VB-17Gs helped with evacuations of personnel from airfields that were being over-run by the agency of North Koreans, but it is not known if 44-83563 was the same of those aircraft.

The Fort was certainly getting any frequent flyer miles because in early 1952 it was flown to Middletown Air depository in Pennsylvania for a consummated overhaul. After this was done, it was back to Japan for service with the 6003rd Base Flight Squadron at Haneda. individual of five VB-17Gs assigned to the unit, the aircraft was used to haul VIPs all from one side of to the other the Far East.