Usually I like to post on this thread to update, everyone who cares to read it, the progress on returning Chuckie to the air. However this time I have some news that is perhaps a little more interesting. You see, up until now there has been zero information on B-17G 44-8543's life from the time it was accepted by the AAF in October of 1944 through September of 1945. It was popular belief that the plane was configured as a radar equipped Pathfinder bomber and served in the 486th BG in Sudbury England at the tail end of the war. However there was never any concrete evidence to confirm this.
Yesterday I recieved in the mail copies of two AAF accident reports on B-17G S/N 44-8543 from AAIR. These accident reports are good news and bad news. The good news is that yes, she was equipped with the Pathfinder "Mickey" radar. The bad news is that she almost certainly did not serve overseas.
She was in two accidents, one major one in February of 1945 at Cleveland Municipal Airport and one minor one in July of 1945 at Vandalia Ohio - not exactly in the thick of the action. Below are the summaries of the two accidents.
Accident #1 February 12, 1945 at Cleveland Ohio was a major accident. Home station: Patterson AAF, Ohio ATSC Command, Engineering and Production Division, Flight Section, Flight Test Branch.
Copilot 1st Lt. Warren C. Dennison was taking off from the right seat with Major Edward T. Dunn flying left seat, (both pilots have hundreds of actual combat hours) the plane started to veer to the right on the icy runway and 1st Lt. Dennison overcorrected and got the left gear off the edge of the runway at which time it contacted a small snow drift and then subsequently a larger drift which swung the airplane to the left and stopped it suddenly enough to tip it up on it’s nose damaging the chin turret (yes she still had it at that time) nose skin and #2 and #3 props. When the tail came down, it came down hard enough to damage the tail wheel, partially retracting it and damaging skin, stringers and bulkheads in the tail wheel area. (OUCH!!)
The report also says that when the tail came down that it damaged the “radar dome”!!! Sounds like proof that maybe she was a Mickey ship after all!!
There are pictures (very grainy B/W) of her in the snow drift up to the top of wheels (not the tires) and about half of the tail wheel visible below the bottom skin of the tail. It also appears that her name at the time was “Weather Guinea Pig” as it is painted on both sides of the nose below the cockpit widows in line with the cheek windows.
Total time on airframe and all four engines: 110.10 hours!!! She still had that new bomber smell I bet! The Major flying in the left seat took the heat for this accident because he didn't try to help the Lt recover the aircraft.
Accident #2 July 9, 1945 at Vandalia Ohio was a taxiing accident. Home station: Dayton AAF, Ohio ATSC Command, Flight Section, School Branch
The 1st Lt. student pilot was taxiing out of a parking spot and had a P-47 parked to his left but didn’t taxi forward far enough before turning left and the left wing hit the prop on the P-47 (prop was not turning). It damaged the outer wing panel and deicer boot. The report says that they changed the left outer wing panel, not sure if they mean the wing tip or the whole section outboard of the nacelle. The pictures look like just the wing tip was damaged but it also says that the deicer boot was damaged. No damage to the P-47 (Republic makes a tough plane!). It wasn’t completely the pilot’s fault, the crew chief was standing in front of the right side of the nose of the B-17 and not out in front of the left wing like he should have been. Stinkin' crew chiefs!
My guess is that after the first accident that the AAF decided that it wasn't worth the time and money to repair the chin turret and radar dome on a bomber that was probably never going to be used in combat anyway (the war was nearly over in Feb. '45), so they removed both and turned it over to the All Weather Flying Service School. Notice that it was assigned to the
Flight Test Branch during the time of accident #1, but assigned to the
School Branch in accident #2 just 4 months later. There is a picture in Final Cut on page 79 that shows her at Patterson Field in June of 1946 with no nose turret or radar dome also.
I felt like a kid at Christmas yesterday when I got this information. There has been a lot of speculation for a lot of years that this puts to rest, in my opinion. Thank you to AAIR for making these records available.
BTW, the inspection is progressing nicely and will continue to do so if Second Air Force doesn't run off to Australia to restore a B-24 on me!