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.
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.
Hey, look on the bright side re: the dog. Murphy's taking the edge off of both of their youthful enthusiasms for you, and your nephew gets to put up with his hijinks and get blamed for his humor, instead of you. :-)
@ Old NFO. Yep. saw that. They tried to claim that it was "airshow smoke" but if so, it was the only aircraft that ran it's "smoke" from take-off until landing.
Oh, I hear ya. But I'm sure that they were thinking that here it is, the biggest event they've put on in years, and their best fund-raising aircraft has a minor gripe but can still make RPM's and fly. One oil leak wasn't about to stop the show.
Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteHey, look on the bright side re: the dog. Murphy's taking the edge off of both of their youthful enthusiasms for you, and your nephew gets to put up with his hijinks and get blamed for his humor, instead of you. :-)
Murphy is building his posse. First strike, the vacuum.
ReplyDeleteGreat pics and video, but they've got problems with at least one jug on #2... It's leaking oil BADLY!
ReplyDelete@ Old NFO. Yep. saw that. They tried to claim that it was "airshow smoke" but if so, it was the only aircraft that ran it's "smoke" from take-off until landing.
ReplyDeleteBS!!! Just sayin... :-)
ReplyDeleteOh, I hear ya. But I'm sure that they were thinking that here it is, the biggest event they've put on in years, and their best fund-raising aircraft has a minor gripe but can still make RPM's and fly. One oil leak wasn't about to stop the show.
ReplyDelete