New B-17 rebuild

[barit1]

I must have the luck of the Irish - Just returned from a short but sweet ride in a freshly-restored B-17G "Liberty Belle" N390TH.

History of this ship (http://www.libertyfoundation.org/history2.php)

I was seated behind the waist guns and noted some professionally-done stringer splices around the aft fuselage, most certainly associated with the damage noted in the above history.

It's now enroute to Oshkosh.

[Onan the Clumsy]

A tornado in Conecticut :confused:


We had a hurricane pass through Massapequa when I lived in NYC. That was rare...but a tornado :{



Interesting link (http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b2-21d.htm)



This might be a pic...

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b17gv1.jpg

[Cyclic Hotline]

I don't know if it was the same tornado, but the Connecticut Guard had a bunch of their CH-54B Skycranes blown over in a tornado.

Atthough the Crane program was in its latter stages, for whatever reason, they were rebuilt at the factory then placed into long term storage prior to be sold as surplus. They were a hell of a buy!

[barit1]

Onan, my first look at your photo suggested it may be the C-W bird, perhaps with some early R-3350 w/ Constellation cowl (scoops top & bottom). But I was wrong - no cylinder cooling air inlet - your link says it's a T56 in the nose.

Bradley Air Museum referred to this ship as a "Boeing model 299Z" - because the structural work to prepare it as a testbed was done by Boeing. I had never heard it referred to as "JB-17G" before seeing your link. The ship carried civil registration N5111N when P&W operated it. Here's some more history: http://www.steenaero.com/news.cfm

By the way - www.libertyfoundation.org talks about "T-34 and T-64" engines being tested in this bird. The T64 is a GE-designed engine, and it's unlikely GE would have ever teamed with arch-rival P&W on this flight test. The only flight test program I've ever heard of for the T64 turboprop (as opposed to the helicopter version of that engine) was a modified DHC-4 Caribou, which later led to the DHC-5 Buffalo.

If you Google "Boeing 299Z" you can find a lot more about the trio of ships used for engine test postwar.