Detailed tour through a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress

hello and welcome to the cockpit of a boeing b-17 flying fortress an absolute icon of world war ii and probably one of the most important bombers of the war although this aircraft almost didn't happen after the prototype crashed while they were testing for the u.s air corps so the contract ended up going to douglas but the us air corps were so impressed by the design that they ended up buying some based on technicality and then in the end they ended up building over 12 000 of these aircraft and in this video i'm going to take you on a detailed tour first i'm going to walk around the outside pointing out what makes it unique and interesting and then we're going to crawl back in here into the cockpit and i'll show you more i make videos about planes and some rockets if you're into trip reports on flights around the world and tours through interesting aircraft and museums then check out my channel i'm also on instagram and facebook this is a b17g model which was the final and most produced variant with the most obvious change being the chin turret the germans learned to attack directly from the front as the undecided ball tyrant couldn't fire forward because of the props and antennas so to address this they introduced an extra torrent with two 50 kelp browning machine guns it was operated remotely by the bombardier's position who was right up there in the nose there were also these two other cheek tyrants on the side but they couldn't fire straight forward and these were operated by the navigator we will crawl in there later but let's keep looking on the outside under here you have the radio communication cables and this large black thing is the adf which stood for automatic direction finder antenna which was a navigation tool a ground station which could even be an airport would emit a specific radio wave and the crew could lock onto that frequency and then get a constant relative direction towards it here we are in the single bombay which for me appeared much more than i was expecting for longer missions they could carry four and a half thousand pounds or up to eight thousand pounds on shorter ones as they would carry less fuel you have this walkway in the middle and i'll show you that later the b-17 dropped more bombs on germany and occupied territory than any other american aircraft during world war ii equating around 640 000 tons will spin around and head back to the front now there are two large forward landing gears under the engines two and three leaving the fuselage for the bombay the wheels only folded up partially with the idea being that they could still land on them even if there was a failure and they didn't fully extend there would be damage done but it wouldn't be catastrophic and repaired it relatively easily now it's hard to see but if you look closely then you can see the lower part of the wheels here in this photo the brakes and the cowling flaps are the only hydraulic components on the b17 so the rest of the landing gear mechanism was all operated electronically here are the four right r1820 nine-cylinder air-cooled radial engines and they were both turbo and supercharged they displaced 1800 cubic inches or just under 30 liters they produced 1200 horsepower each and you'll notice multiple air intakes on the wings leading edges now i'll explain those two shortly and these two here are the cold air inlets for the oil coolers looking here are the adjustable engine cowling flaps which as i said before are the only other hydraulic system in the aircraft other than the brakes now this could open up and increase incoming cooling air from the front by allowing hot air to exit out through them but this would also increase drag so only used when the engines were running hot the darker tubing under here is the exhaust and this circular device is the turbocharger turbine which the exhaust would spin up to 20 000 rpm which would then increase the pressure of the air entering the engine but obviously that air would be very hot so this air intake here would then take in cold air for the intercooler that simply cooled the pressurized hot air and next to that is the actual air intake for the carburetor and that air would eventually end up in the cylinders and those other two inlets between engine 3 and the fuselage that i showed you earlier had the same role as these we'll work our way around the wing and as was the norm back then and for many decades there was a clean lateral edge to the wing with no winglets now the controlled surfaces and here you can see the aileron which is a different colour were made of fabric this was lighter than metal so you didn't need hydraulic power to help move it metal was also scarce during the war and these were easy to repair these small red vents which i'll zoom up close to on the opposite side were there to allow air in and help ventilate the wing now the fuel tanks were in here and could leak a little so the idea was that you could remove as much of the fuel vapor as possible as to lower the risk of an ignition from a bullet hitting the metal wings and causing a spark and these vents here are where the air and vapor would ideally escape from and anything else such as excess air from the intercooler now here is the ball torrent and yes someone would sit inside that although there wasn't room for a parachute so they'd have to be very brave as with all of the guns on the b17 they were 50 caliber browning machine guns and here's the entrance hatch they will be sitting with the legs in the middle between the guns with a similar view to my camera it could fire approximately 700 rounds per minute and this guy may have felt very vulnerable but he was actually very well protected with a lot of armor plating around him and by the way to enter here in flight he would move the guns angling them directly downwards which would then move this hatch up into the fuselage often these flights would last many hours and there was no on-board toilet so the crew would open the bombay doors and relieve themselves out there but as you may have noticed this ball turret was directly behind that so it will get a nice coating of well morning tea you'll also notice that there's protruding head rivets and fairly rough connections between the wing and the fuselage as designs advanced it's interesting to contrast this with the b29 whose rivets were made flush with the surface and every other panel was designed to smoothly fit each other thus giving the b-29 much better aerodynamics even though it was a bigger aircraft this next position is the waist gunner with their single machine gun working our way back there is the crew entrance hatch and will enter there shortly and behind that is an entrance or an excerpt for the tower gunner again both the elevator and rudder were made of fabric [Music] here's the towel gunner's position with the twin 50 cal machine guns and the side above that this guy was protected by bulletproof glass and there was also armored plating inside just behind the gun and in front of his chest and legs working our way around you'll see the tail wheel which retracts up to reduce drag in flight now there was no steering of it so it turns just like a supermarket trolley but it could be locked for takeoff and landing this here is the high frequency trailing antenna reel which could be extended down over 60 meters while in flight to aid communication you have here the opposite side of waist gun that we saw before and here's a closer look at those red wing vents and you'll notice that they're open forwards and at speed air will be pushed up into them creating the positive pressure within the wing that would again help a drone fuel and vapor out gravity could also draw liquid down through them as well the engines were fitted with three blade hamilton standard constant speed propellers and that could be fully feathered if there was an in-flight engine failure now let's go inside this incredible piece of engineering for some context the model 299 which was essentially the prototype b17 first flew in 1935. so the design was almost 90 years old now production continued until 1945 and just over 12 700 were built the name the flying fortress came from a seattle times reporter who saw the model 299 and called it a quote 15 ton flying fortress boeing trademarked it and similar names continued with boeing's bombers including the b-29 superfortress and the b-52 stratofortress we'll enter the aircraft right down the back and work our way forward starting in the tail gunner's position down here is the tail wheel which will be electronically lifted up into this space once we're in the air there were very little creature comforts on board and the wall itself was just thin metal because you obviously want to save weight there's no insulation so it would be very hot sitting on the ground and incredibly cold at altitude on the left was the entrance hatch which i discovered is what i should have used to get in here before and on the right are yellow and green oxygen cylinders remember that this is not pressurized therefore the crew had to have supplemental oxygen and they would use these smaller cylinders to move around the cabin straight ahead it was the very uncomfortable bicycle seat now i'm only 180 centimeters tall and by the shaking of the camera you can see how difficult it was to get into position you've got these two machine guns here and it's been removed but you'd also have armor plating in front of the gunner and they'd reach around it to hold the gun and the two tracks are obviously for the bullets which would be stored in the two wooden boxes that green bag was the all-important parachute and this here was the fixed oxygen system which the gunner could attach to for the duration of the flight now we'll work our way back further forward and sneak out this door and back into the crew entrance armor plating was fairly sparse as it was always a compromise between having enough metal to protect the humans but not too much that would weigh the plane down and reduce bombs and fuel load which was the purpose of the aircraft straight ahead you have another green portable oxygen cylinder then just above that is the integrated oxygen system for one of the waste gunners on the left of that was the communication system between the crew members where they could all plug into it and talk to each other here's the two waste gunner positions and you'll notice that they're both staggered in earlier b17s they were directly across from each other so the two gunners would be constantly obstructing and running into each other the problem is that when they were staggered the single ballistic plate underneath both guns no longer protected the back of the opposite gunner so they were more vulnerable to harm at altitude it could be minus 30 to 40 degrees celsius so the crew had electric heating suits and they could plug into here to generate some heat the problem was that their job could be quite intense and generate sweat and any liquid was not something that you'd want inside an electric jacket which was known to short and give little zaps down here are the bullet tracks and if you look closely you can see how large a 50 coil round actually is these cables up here and on the opposite side were the flight controls for the tail with a direct connection through to the cockpit this was pretty uncomfortable to walk around so imagine the existential angst that these young men would have experienced knowing that any second they could have been blown out of the sky it's pretty horrific to think about again there were more oxygen cylinders everywhere and parachutes down here was the ball turret we saw from underneath and they could enter via here as well you don't see any seats here as everything really was very basic when they weren't manning the guns they were simply sitting on the floor the b-17 had a crew of ten there was the pilot and the co-pilot the navigator the bombardier who was also the nose gunner the flight engineer who was also the top turret gunner the radio operator two waist gunners a ball tarrant gunner and a tail gunner this position here is the radio operator who had a whole range of communication equipment this here is the onboard crew communication system the jacket warmer and the oxygen that you've seen elsewhere in the plane when called upon this guy could also pull out a machine gun and could fire it out the top of the plane here we are entering the catwalk through the bombay and what's striking to me is how small it actually seems while it wasn't as long as other aircraft such as a lancaster it went up to the top of the fuselage so more bombs could be stacked on top of each other as you can see here now moving forward and we find a whole lot more oxygen tanks and this here on the right is the hydraulic tank remember that unlike many modern aircraft the b17 had minimal hydraulic functions with the reason being that the pressurized system of hydraulic hoses all throughout the plant could be easily damaged and potentially causing the whole system to fail individual electric systems would not be interconnected so an entire failure was less likely where i'm standing now is the flight engineer's position who would be sitting perched up here and also operate the upper gun turret unlike the lancaster which only had a single pilot this guy's role would be shared more with the co-pilot therefore he was available to also go shooting but he would also have a good understanding of the aircraft's mechanicals and look forward into the cockpit and monitor temperatures and pressures etc down here is the path to the navigator and bombardier and we'll go there shortly now here i am calling into the pilot seat and what an honor it is to experience this and what a fantastic view of engine one and two out of the side window here's the captain's oxygen system and moving around you've got the electrical systems you'll see that there's actually a fairly sparse amount of dials remember this is 1940s technology but still provided the crew with all the information they needed to fly in the center here you've got the fuel mixtures and moving further back are the engine throttles which are a very odd design this smaller one here is engine two this bigger one is engine one then at three and then engine four now you could move them all together just like this below that are the propeller speed controls which were geared so depending on the stage of the flight you could decide how fast you wanted them turning other than using the engine throttles although unlike newer aircraft they were not a variable pitch which means that you could twist them to increase thrust or even reverse them on landing to slow you down over on the co-pilot side there were a lot more dials and again these guys somewhat shared a role with the flood engineer to monitor every system as well as giving the pilot a break from flying these were all hand flown with no autopilot and often in close proximity to other aircraft so you'd be pretty exhausted concentrating 110 to avoid a collision check out my b29 video where you'll see that a lot of these controls and dials are actually in a separate dedicated flight engineer station now both of these seat backs were armor-plated and there was also a plate behind the instrument panel although they were completely vulnerable to fire through the windscreen and above so the crew would often wear flak jackets with armor plates extending from their neck down to their pelvis now let's spin around and go downstairs and immediately on the left is the crew entrance hatch which i'll exit through shortly so first up is the navigator's position which was obviously very important pre-gps and especially at night they used radio devices and compasses although these aids were open to jamming later ground radars were used to identify the terrain below which was especially important when flying at night and they could also use a good old-fashioned sextant looking up through this astro dome up at the stars the navigator was also responsible for using these two single 50k machine guns as well the drift meter here could be used to identify the angle between the aircraft's heading and the actual path over the ground which helped both navigating and the bombardier identified drift due to factors including the wind and finally the bombardier's position straight ahead is the norton bomb site and on the left was their control panel to calculate the airspeed altitude and other variables down here was the intervalometer which calculated the time between separate bomb drops to maximize the damage and then moving back to the right again is the remote gun control for the chin turret sitting right below this guy now flying at thirty thousand feet the bomb will be released four kilometres before the target and take 60 seconds to hit the ground considering those variables it highlights how impressive the technology was to get remotely anywhere near the target thanks for joining me on this tour i've got many more similar videos on my channel including touring through an avra lancaster b29 and b52 and it's fascinating to compare the different designs thanks for watching

Channel: Paul Stewart

Views: 52,224

Keywords: aviation, avgeek, airplane, plane, flyingfortress, flying fortress, b17, b-17, boeing, b17g, b-17g, b17 flying fortress, ww2, world war 2, B-29, Super Fortress, Paul Stewart, Paul Stewart aviation, vehicle, bombers, bomber

Id: h4_ESnENDfI

Length: 17min 26sec (1046 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 16 2022