More plane porn: The B-17G

While the Spud is out walking his dog (the furry turncoat bailed on me just as soon as the kid walked in the door), I figure I can post some more airshow pics.

So here's the B-17G "Yankee Lady" doing it's thing a few weeks back.

The B-17G is powered by four 1,200-horsepower Wright Cyclone Model R-1820-97 engines. These engines are nine cylinder, radial, air-cooled type with a 16:9 gear ratio. The propellers are three-bladed Hamilton Standard propellers, 11 feet, 7 inches in diameter.

Speeds:
Maximum 300 mph. at 30,000 ft.
Maximum continuous 263 mph. at 25,000 ft.
Cruising speed 170 mph.
Landing 74 mph.
Rate of Climb 37 minutes to 20,000 ft.

Required Crew:
Ten-Pilot, Co-pilot, Navigator, Bombardier, Flight Engineer (top turret gunner), Radio Operator, 2 Waist Gunners, Tail Gunner and Ball Turret Gunner

Basic Empty Weight 34,000 lbs.
Gross Weight (Wartime) 65,500 lbs.
Range: 1,850 miles. Enough to fly deep into Germany and back from bases in England.

Bomb load: 8,000 lbs. Defensive armament: Thirteen Browning M-2 .50 caliber machine guns, each of which fired at around 600 rounds per minute. And no gun on a B-17 carried more than one minute's supply of ammunition.

During the war, there were 12,732 of these bombers built, with production peaking at 16 planes per day in April of 1944. In the 1950's and 1960's, they were still being hacked up for their aluminum and those few that survived did so because they were turned into air tankers or other such utility planes. (This one flew as an air tanker until 1969) Now there are about a dozen left world-wide that still fly. We didn't save enough of them when we could have, and now they're almost all gone.

The Boeing B-17G Yankeee Lady.

Long may she fly.