B-17G What existing Fort has BEST Restored interior?

[mustangdriver]

Shoo Shoo Baby
My Gal Sal

Once Memphis Belle is complete it will be first hands down. I don't think that flying vs non flying matters in this question.

[JDK]

I don't think that flying vs non flying matters in this question.

But clearly it does, as stated here - for many flyers, especially those providing rides (a great thing) removing or not fitting some gear and having mock up upper turrets makes a lot of operating sense.

(I'm not aware of any static museum in that position - many static B-17s are incomplete inside, but that's usually to do with the owner or non-availability of parts.)

Another reason we need both airworthy and static examples.

[sgt hawk]

I got to go thru "Aluminum Overcast" with Dad several years ago (331st sqd 94th bg). I remarked to him how crowded it was and he said "yeah it was prety tight but at 5' 11' and 155 lbs back then it wasn't anything you thought about". Johnny Heard, the ball turret gunner was 5' 5" and 120 lbs, so those guys weren't as "corn fed" as todays youth. It's nice to see one with all the authentic gear but when your flying the public for a fee to keep em in the air I understand why you have to exclude and make room for folks. Love to see one with all the equipment in working order though.

[APG85]

Shoo Shoo Baby
.

Any pic's?

[SPANNERmkV]

TEXAS RAIDERS was stripped of most of its combat furniture, but then it has been returned over the years from various sources.

Varous crimes against originality have been committed over the years.
(The Brooks plane out of the lake was an unmolested Douglas manufacture and the exterior and interior skin was NMF and the longerons were painted with the dark green zinc chromate primer.)
TEXAS RAIDERS was primed inside, skin and all, so if one uses the yardstick of "as issued from the factory" we lose some points.

Second Air Force pointed out we have probably got a B24 ball turret mounting system, because ours appears to have some of the retraction gear, but not all, by a long shot.
Our chin turret is a non-operational mounting with an original tub and ammo trays.

One item that cannot be ignored is TR has an Elephant Pecker and you just don't see those in every B17 these days.
The elephant Pecker is the unit that keeps the Norden Bomb Sight warm.
Ours is big and green and while it is a little soiled with hard use it still stands up well, given its age and all.
Forgive me if I seem inordinately proud of our unit, but any B17 would be proud to have their hands on it.

I have tried to get our photographers to shoot a picture of it but when I tell them it is 8 feet long they hang up on me.



SPANNER

[Holedigger]

Texas Raiders has come a long ways, though I have yet to get by and see her, its', um...........Elephant Pecker!!! Here is what her interior looked like in 78, Port Arthur air show. Bad pic but the only one I have...No flash cubes for my Kodak point-N-Shoot...too dark.....Jerked the trigger! Note the long range fuel cell

[mustangdriver]

Shoo Shoo Baby
.

Any pic's?

I was only in it once, but there are pics of it on the website.

[gschwartz]

As for colors, I'm not sure if "Interior Green" (actually tinted Zinc Chromate Yellow) was ever used on the insides of wartime B-17s..maybe some of the very late production aircraft. AFIAK, it was Dull Dark Green in the nose, cockpit, and radio room, and bare metal in the bombay, waist, and tail gun compartment. I'm not sure about Gs, but earlier B-17s came from the factory with a lot of padding in the nose and radio room (although I don't think it was the diamond-pattern quilted stuff) but I understand it was usually ripped out in the field for fear of fire and to make maintenance easier. On earlier B-17, the areas under the fabric padding were unpainted.

I can speak to some of these issues on the Yankee Lady restoration as I had a hand in both the paint color inside and the diamond pattern quilting insulation. First of all our airplane is a Vega built aircraft and the twelveth from the last built.

While stripiing many layers of grey and black paint off the control columns we got down to the blue green color. The book called for a "Berloidz Bronze Green" (not sure of spelling ) for all the "occupied compartments". This was the only paint color in the book without a federal paint specification. The paint manufacturer couldn't be found, so, we preserved about a 2x3 inch area of the paint in question and glued it to an index card. Our paint crew had the sample tested for color match at an automotive paint supplier (we are talking late 1980's to early 1990's and the computerized paint matching service wasn't common then as it is now at Home Depot etc.)

We painted the nose, cockpit, radio room, and waist area with this color. We had a few detractors as you always do with these things. Well once we saw the relics brought up from the ice cap by the Greenland Expedition guys we noted how close our color matched the B-17 pedestal they brought up, we felt vindicated on our color choice.

As to the insulation, we had the same bunch of detractors complain that we were "dolling" the airplane up with that diamond quilting and "no B-17 had quilted interior" (all depends on what picture you choose to make your case with). As many of you know every 20 or so airplanes were different from the next. Well low and behold after removing the intercooler control stand to rework the cables in our airplane, I removed from behind the control stand a triangular piece of insulation with the same diamond pattern and similar color to the current production material. The balance of the material having long since been stripped away and only the material obscured by the control box remained. I would bet a months pay that that was original to the airplanes manufacturer, that no one had removed that control stand since the airplane was built. The fabric I pulled out had a muslin backing with a hemp type quilting material. The new material has a plastic backing with fiberglass quilting.

Curious to others restoration stories! This could be a fun thread.

Grant Schwartz
Yankee Air Museum

[Steve Nelson]

Thanks for the info..I wasn't sure just when the diamond quilt padding was introduced. Of all the currently operational Forts, Yankee Lady is my personal favorite (of course, being a native Michigander I'm a bit biased!)

According to Alan Blue's B-24 book, some guy at Ford had the idea to use change the interior color of Willow Run built Liberators to a different pastel shade with each production block. Fortunately the idea was shot down..can you imagine how that would have driven restorers and us model builders nuts?!

SN

[SPANNERmkV]

Grant,
The Aero Design book #19 shows one the two forts with that color and at first I thought they got the color registration wrong at the printers or the developer messed up. IIRC it was Pink Lady.

But lo and behold I have come across some B17 brackets from our "spares" collection that are exactly that dark blue-ish green as you describe.

My Dad said they always flew B17s with "insulation" stateside and it was the first thing to come out when they got over-seas.
His crew meticulously cared for "Slightly Dangerous" because like EVERY crew they were lied to, and told they would be flying her in combat.
As soon as they landed it was taken away and re-assigned and they went about training missions around the Isles in every manner of clapped out ship.
Fate conspired that SLIGHTLY DANGEROUS was assigned to another 384th Sqdn. at Grafton-Underwood, but they never flew her again.

Also, for all you originality buffs. He said you could walk out to the flight line and climb into two different Boeing made B-17s with close serial numbers and the accessories would be in different places. It depended on who felt like sticking what where. As long as it was on the plane the USAAF didn't seem to care, because they were using them up faster than popcorn.

And fuel consumption could vary for no discernible reason. Some of them got known as pigs because they just seemed to burn more gas no matter what.

TR is working on the various knick-knacks and even those are causing debating societies to be formed. The green on the walk-arounds is TOO shiny and the yellow on the big bottles is TOO pale and cowabunga man.
I just want to go fly her!

[groundpounder]

My vote for non-flyer(?) would have to go to Boeing Bee. There were some excellent pics posted on a thread here a while ago. I don't know how you could beat that restoration.

[Holedigger]

On the waist guns, looks like most used the wooden ammo boxes, but on the feed to the Port .50, I have seen a mix of right side feed and left side feed. Was this something from the factory or a field mod. Seems the armament in the field was always being tweaked and played with. Waist gun shell catchers, a bag? a bin? Let um go on the floor? What was "As New" set-up?

[Pat Carry]

A number of years ago during an EAA sponsered event at the NMUSAF I had the pleasure of going into Shoo Shoo Baby. I guess I was a little surprised at how "naked" the waist area looked. Things that were missing included all oxegyn equipment, aluminum oxegyn piping and the rheostat outlets for the heated flying suits. Have these items been added since does anyone know?

[SPANNERmkV]

On the waist guns, looks like most used the wooden ammo boxes, but on the feed to the Port .50, I have seen a mix of right side feed and left side feed. Was this something from the factory or a field mod. Seems the armament in the field was always being tweaked and played with. Waist gun shell catchers, a bag? a bin? Let um go on the floor? What was "As New" set-up?

Excellent observation that makes me go hmmmm

I just saw the "BEFORE" pictures of TR and both wooden ammo bins were aft of the waist gun positions and that presumes they had the ability to swicth the feed from one to the other OR some mullet decided to go with whatever ws easiest.
Don't get me wrong... We love our mullets!

SPANNER

[ktst97]

Once Memphis Belle is complete it will be first hands down.

The others could be as good as any of those aircraft at the NMUSAF if the others were also being restored on taxpayer $$.

I don't think that flying vs non flying matters in this question.

The question was "B-17G What existing Fort has BEST Restored interior?"
I think the words "existing Fort has" in the original question eliminate MB from consideration.

Last edited by ktst97 on Sat Oct 03, 2009 10:04 am, edited 1 time in total.