Single Engine B17! (& other oddities)

[Zagi-2]

Rajay's post about the Rutan-designed B-17 got me looking around the web.

Check out this single-engine B-17. Weird! http://www.pointniner.com/2008/08/single-engine-b-17-other-rare-aircraft.html

You may also want to peruse this great online collection of other strange and rare WWII aircraft from both the Axis & Allied sides. http://rareaircraf1.greyfalcon.us/

Just when you thought you'd seen it all...

Enjoy!

PS - Since I originally posted this 2 hours ago, several people have asserted that the B-17 picture must be photo-shopped. I have since conducted additional research, and suspect the picture to be a (fascinating) fake.

See E.G.:
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=2455

and

http://aerofiles.com/boe-b17turbo.jpg (note that the top picture looks to have been taken during the same flight as the picture that started this post (http://www.pointniner.com/2008/08/single-engine-b-17-other-rare-aircraft.html)

Last edited by Zagi-2 on Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:55 am, edited 3 times in total.

[b29flteng]

Photoshopped B-17

[John Dupre]

It has to be a retouched photograph of one of the 5 engine test beds. Everything about the single engine photo looks identical to the 5 engine one. If anything so fantastic as to remove the other 4 engines had ever been done I can't imagine we would only be discovering it now.

[Kyleb]

It has to be a retouched photograph of one of the 5 engine test beds. Everything about the single engine photo looks identical to the 5 engine one. If anything so fantastic as to remove the other 4 engines had ever been done I can't imagine we would only be discovering it now.

Yep, a photochop job. Anyone who is unconvinced should ask him/herself where the main gear would go in a B-17 with no nacelles.

[Rajay]

It has to be a retouched photograph of one of the 5 engine test beds. Everything about the single engine photo looks identical to the 5 engine one. If anything so fantastic as to remove the other 4 engines had ever been done I can't imagine we would only be discovering it now.

Yep, a photochop job. Anyone who is unconvinced should ask him/herself where the main gear would go in a B-17 with no nacelles.

Maybe after the difficulties they had with the landing gear on the Rutan canard YB-40-RU as we previously discussed,
they used this single engine B-17 flying testbed to develop the tandem landing gear system they later used on the B-47.

(Rule of thumb: the best BS contains at least a kernel of truth to lend it a touch of validity....)

[Holedigger]

Who needs landing gear when you have antigravity generators on board! (just about as believable!!!)

[F3V]

Photoshopped B-17

yep!

[tom d. friedman]

i subsrcibe to so many av mags & can tell you this has been 1 hot topic lately!!!

[Canso42]

Anybody got pix of the Liberty Belle in its five engine configuration?

The second link has some real bizarros. The first time I looked at the listing of American a/c the first one gave me a reaction of "man, someone's been rooting around unsupervised in the storage hangar."

[Nathan]

Rajay's post about the Rutan-designed B-17 got me looking around the web.

Check out this single-engine B-17. Weird! http://www.pointniner.com/2008/08/single-engine-b-17-other-rare-aircraft.html

You may also want to peruse this great online collection of other strange and rare WWII aircraft from both the Axis & Allied sides. http://rareaircraf1.greyfalcon.us/

Just when you thought you'd seen it all...

Enjoy!

PS - Since I originally posted this 2 hours ago, several people have asserted that the B-17 picture must be photo-shopped. I have since conducted additional research, and suspect the picture to be a (fascinating) fake.

See E.G.:
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=2455

and

http://aerofiles.com/boe-b17turbo.jpg (note that the top picture looks to have been taken during the same flight as the picture that started this post (http://www.pointniner.com/2008/08/single-engine-b-17-other-rare-aircraft.html)

Pretty sure thats Liberty Belle! Yep, another photoshop job. I really hope no one here thinks its real!