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don brooks b17 status

Mon May 31, 2010 12:30 am

hello does any one know of the status of don brooks b17, the one pulled out of the lake in canada
and does anyone have pics
thanks
earnie

Re: don brooks b17 status

Mon May 31, 2010 12:42 am

There are several people involved with that project and/or Mr. Brooks here. Last I heard, the B-17 was still in pieces in Georgia and work hasn't really started on it. On Warbird Radio, the Chief Pilot of the "Liberty Bell" talked a bit about it and said it would probably be at least 10 years before it would fly. I believe I heard that Mr. Brooks wanted to concentrate on finishing up the P-40 which recently flew before taking on the B-17 project.

Re: don brooks b17 status

Mon May 31, 2010 5:52 am

From what I red, they use some part from the B-17 in Georgia as template for the project in Ohio.
I remember seeing pictures of the deskinning of the radio room, to made direcly new skin for the both projets.
(The Ohio's guys had started to build a radio room from scratch, using these skin as reference)

Re: don brooks b17 status

Mon May 31, 2010 5:44 pm

Photos taken in October of 2008:

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image


Fuselage was inside a hangar.

Walt

Re: don brooks b17 status

Mon May 31, 2010 6:02 pm

RareBear wrote:Photos taken in October of 2008:

Image

Image

Fuselage was inside a hangar.

Walt


The "parts" on the trailer are not B-17, Reilly picked them off of a DC-3 headed to the scrapper. The outboard wing panels are the only thing on the ramp that belong to Don. We will resume work on the Labrador B-17 shortly, just need to get the Stearman and SNJ a little further along.

I'll post an update as we get a Labrador B-17 display ready for Thunder.

The crew from Champaign Lady did come down about 4 years ago to copy skins from the forward fuselage. Don't know if they ever used them.

Chuck

Re: don brooks b17 status

Mon May 31, 2010 6:11 pm

may be it would be cool to see this one restored to represent " LITTLE MISS MISCHIEF " as i assume that this airplane will be a composite aircraft just like " MISCHIEF "
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