Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress - Jay Leno's Garage

once again with Rob cowling from the cowling foundation they keep these great old planes flying this is the b-17 probably one of the most famous planes of world war two wouldn't you say absolutely the most famous American bomber everyone knows from Memphis Belle and 12 o'clock high war lover and it really was a very important aircraft they built over 12,500 of these things right here right this aircraft rolled off the assembly line down in Long Beach a lot of places around here in fact the building next to me the walls are 14 feet thick only because what happens I they they would come off the assembly line they would test the machine guns against the cement and just as millions and millions of cartridges and shells still buried in the ground there where they would just test them before they would fly off yeah tell us about the engines and these these are nine cylinder curtiss-wright engines okay Studebaker was building them actually you can see the Studebaker logo right on the oh yeah yeah you know again everyone was involved with them it's a 1200 horsepower 18 hundred and 20 cubic inch engine supercharged and turbocharged for high altitude the b-17 was really a great high-altitude aircraft it could fly through 30 35,000 feet with its wing get above some of the flak and some of the fighters and make it a little less vulnerable to attack primarily they were used by the 8th Air Force which was the the bomber command based in England and they were flying the real tough missions to Berlin and schweinfurt and hitting the heart of Germany years and years before we ever set foot in Europe yeah before d-day and June of 44 these guys were flying missions in 42 and 43 and had a tremendous loss rate tell us about the firepower in this plane well it's a 10-man crew up in the front you have the Bombardier and you can see that the very very famous Norden bombsight which was a an early mechanical computer that would take into account the altitude of the aircraft the density altitude wind drift and allow the bombs to get relatively on target for them within a thousand feet was good its through the front door or someone's house right but that's why they had thousands of aircraft line on missions with him up there is the Navigator and they would run the chin turret right there and the cheek guns so there's four machine guns right in the front you have the pilot and co-pilot and behind them is the top turret gunner so two more machine guns and then the bombe the whole reason that we're going on the mission in the back it's a lot like the b-24 we have a ball turret gunner the same ball turret to waist Gunners and a tail turret and so in total this was Fault machine guns and again not pressurized of it's not pressure whether pressurized aircraft from World War they came along much later at the b-29 Superfortress which was Boeing's follow-on to this a much larger aircraft and it was only used in the Pacific of course it's the airplane that dropped the a-bomb I met a gentleman who was a nose gunner we're gonna talk to him in just a minute well I was looking at the nose gun of this b-17 I ran into an old nose gunner what's your name sir uh Oliver al how are you oh just fine just fine you flew how many missions in these 26 missions twenty-six missions how scary was it sitting up there well I'll tell you get used to it it's like going to work every day you have a job to do yeah now how old a kid when I was going on 25 I get hit sitting up there well on one occasion we had come out of the soup and we were approaching the English Channel and we get our orders from the pilot to test-fire our guns before we get into enemy territory and I had made a few blasts and I was comfortable everything was okay and suddenly a crash came through the Plexiglas of the nose of the nose there and hit me in the lower extremities that knocked me out and I was in excruciating pain and I called the pilot and I said I've been head and he said I don't believe it we're not in combat yet they said no enemy planes here there are no anti-aircraft guns but before I knew what they were I saw this empty casing on the floor of the plane and I put the two together and I called him I assemble there's a casing here it had to come from another b-17 so little by little I was feeling okay and got back to normal again you see there are three positions on the plane that the Carver's cannot be salvaged then those is one of them the ball turret and the tail position and those cartridges go out into the atmosphere right so I happen to be in the path of one of them and it hit me Wow Wow glad you got back safely Oh 90 91 90 my handshake thank you sir appreciate let's take a look inside you can see you are just hanging out there Rob explain to us what we got here well right in front of you have the the nose gunner position and the the bomb site so the Bombardier was sitting up there and he was directing the the aircraft maybe even hundreds of aircraft in a formation going to the target they would control the guns with that little handle there and we're also of a navigator so there would be two or three guys up here at one point nice cozy place and that plexiglass obviously is you heard from Al doesn't stop a whole lot Wow look at these shells here how loud is this in here it's extraordinarily loud the whole airplane is extraordinarily loud when the guns start firing it's just pretty remarkable you'll notice there's also a lot of plywood all the ammo boxes that yours everything are made out of wood it was a cheap easy material that you you could use instead of aluminum correct you've got your guns right here look at this and you can only fire a short burst even at the cold temperatures they would heat up so quick the barrel will melt Wow so you'd fire two seconds two seconds let off yeah but I can imagine I don't know if I could just fire two seconds if there's a German fighter plane coming right at me I might hold and trigger down a little bit long round I guess that's why they have the barrel the outer barrel with the holes that you can also see this woman who signed it right here she was a Rosie the Riveter who made this section down in Long Beach yeah let's move to the back of the aircraft exactly a 747 we're in the cockpit of the b-17 right here with the pilot and co-pilot sat and looking forward over the Bombardier navigator compartment right behind them was the top turret and gunner you can see they've a very unusual throttle arrangement where you actually hold the throttles underhand and use it that way so you can control all four throttles independently instead of having them lined up like the mixtures this is the bombe of the b-17 you can see these are 500-pound bombs off to my left and originally they'd be on both racks the outer rack of the Interac and this thing would just be filled up and before the mission the armor would go through and pull all the pins out and if for some reason one of the bombs gets hung up he'd actually have to come out here when the doors are open and try to kick it out it's the first place the plane that has any space this way the radio guy radio man with the radio man would sit right there and it's just remarkable what they had to do to tune these radios yeah it would actually come over here pick the frequency range they want to use and take that box and stick it over in there and then go through the whole tune I mean this radio looks like that's just the receiver all right so that's for listening this is for transmitting and then they have these other ones right over here which are different no more like a VHF band these are an HF they're real low-frequency an antenna that actually trail out about three four hundred feet behind the aircraft so they could talk Wow pretty neat back here we have the ball turret and the waist gunner compartment and later on they staggered those waist Gunners so they wouldn't hit one another we're in the b-24 they're so close together so a pretty tight compartment for those guys when they're operating when we get outside we'll take a little closer look at the vulture because that's a fascinating yeah place to be yeah well we're looking at its ball turrent trying to figure out who would fit in this thing we ran into france-presse Frank how are you sir nice to see you Jay Leno i J and you you were a ball turned gunner gunner Wow how many missions 3232 missions sitting in that thing I can't get my head in there how scary was it the internet that's scary oh man and loud yeah well you know when the flak comes up by him don't look like he got hit you get hit at all yeah I got hit on the foot in different places but I you know it didn't penetrate my skin right well just so like somebody got a baseball bat and hit me as hard as possible yeah that's not good either no you know what as issue was a young man there was that when I was flying Wow 20 years old I flew missions against Berlin and the Ruhr Valley and PETA Monday and well polish all those and what was your rank I was Staff Sergeant now if you volunteer to be ball turret gunner know know what you're a gunner they can put you oh I say so but I guess you you were you were probably a good guy you said well I've gone on reunions that we got everything up to six foot tall Wow okay well god bless you thanks for your service sir we appreciate it okay thank you very much there you go another hero in over you Park these old airplanes anywhere somehow these old heroes come out of the woodwork and they come sniffing around you just walked up to me what's your name sterling I was a staff sergeant staff sergeant yeah and you flew the b-17 seventeen and twenty fours I flew this your group yes 486 how old a kid were you when you found 17 no 18 18 18 years old yeah and what was your what was your movies I was in the ball gunner well I was called the armored ago one gunner was a radio operator and another would be the engineer two engineers and I was the armored we're gonna check their bullets and the guns and stuff and one of our longest missions was to Dresden and that was in August 1944 and I sat in the tail of this and I had a big light since we were the lead plane and I flashed a signal from our bomber on Morse code it was a about a 12-hour flight Wow and a pretty noisy pretty cold yet cold and no easy but we had their electric suits on yeah and we managed so there may be a Morse code a little bit little bit W is www and I seen that's a website now now did you guys ever get hit you take it yeah we always got planned oh we always thank you thank you we appreciate it yeah thank you why was a 90 seconds bomb group and these your guys here yeah that's a B this is me right here there we go top turret gunner flew 50 for missions and yeah many close calls yeah we had our hydraulic systems shot out coming back from the mission and Italy is this your plane here is this you think that's it that's me in the top turret right up there right up there the guy that took that picture of the plane that he was in crash-landed and his plane looked perfect when he crashed landed before hey when he'd come back to the base explain what you got here this is a piece of flag that was taken out of the bomb bay of a b25 in the mission to northern Italy and explain what flak is for people don't know flat is anti-aircraft fire German 88 gun that tried to shoot us down this is what they shot at us and this is what we shot at them that's a 50 caliber do you personally get hit with any of this no but this is coming within two feet of where I was it missed me that's why you're here my god yeah well thanks for being an American Hero we appreciate your service

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 2,202,083

Rating: 4.9169679 out of 5

Keywords: Jay Leno, Automotive, Cars, Garage, horsepower, Jay, Leno, mods, custom car, Speed, Fast, modded cars, mechanic, fastest car, Jay Leno's Garage, cars, exotic cars, interview, custom, Leno car, funny, Leno funny, car show, Rare, Motorcycles, racing, jay leno interview, auto, drive, power, fast, amazing, cool, the cars, vehicle, Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, flying fortress

Id: OjRQXjcY6u0

Length: 13min 5sec (785 seconds)

Published: Thu May 02 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/PiratedTuba]

I got a ride in the Nine-O-Nine once and it was terrifying. First time I had ever been in an airplane and the radio room was opened up. Quite an interesting ride for sure. And to think, the only thing that's really changed on passenger planes is that there's a bit of insulation and wiring between you and the air rushing by, rather than just the skin of the hull.

[u/[deleted]]

I love Jay Leno's garage but the "did you get hit" question is a little tasteless.

[u/shake42]

While this isn't technically cars, this is a fantastic vid. Thanks for posting OP.

These guys really were heroes. I'm 22 and can't imagine being in one of those ball gunner positions.

[u/JDMjosh]

Tens of millions of dollars, every cool car on the planet, a full time crew at his beck-and-call... double denim.

[u/johnnynutman]

hopefully if nbc is done with him for good this time some cable station can give him a car show. i think it would be awesome.

[u/TheBrokenWorld]

I spun one of the turbochargers on Nine-O-Nine with my fingers, it was awesome.

[u/Ltkarma]

Wow that vet is 90 and he doesn't look a day over 70 lol what a champ