B-17's at the Cheyenne Modification Center c 1944 ...

[Mark Allen M]

... this is very cool indeed. I'll post a few photos, but there's over 160 photos in the link. Fantastic stuff. PM me if you need my facebook login and password.

https://www.facebook.com/Radio.WW2/phot ... 6926556629

Cheyenne Airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyenne_Regional_Airport

[Pat Carry]

Fantastic Mark!

[BuzzBy]

Awesome photos, thank you Mark!

[Craig59]

As always, Mark, thanks for sharing such an amazing photo essay. It never ceases to amaze me how innovative the USA can be when it's not encumbered by bureaucrats getting in the way. We had a need to get these bombers to the theatre as quickly as possible and rather than slow up the assembly line with changes to production, let's fly them off to a modification center instead. That's how you win a war...

[shrike]

As always, Mark, thanks for sharing such an amazing photo essay. It never ceases to amaze me how innovative the USA can be when it's not encumbered by bureaucrats getting in the way. We had a need to get these bombers to the theatre as quickly as possible and rather than slow up the assembly line with changes to production, let's fly them off to a modification center instead. That's how you win a war...

To be fair that's what they did with Fw-190's too. The factory built A models, the D,F and G models were all reworks

[Chris Brame]

Photos : Wallace Kirkland - LIFE Collections

Wonder how the poster managed to dig these up? Since I'm not on Facebook, I did the usual "source:LIFE" Google search under B-17, Wallace Kirkland, Cheyenne, etc. and came up with bupkis.

[Chris Brame]

Reversed photo fixed:

[b17engineer]

Somewhere in my piles of stuff I have some pictorial history of United Airlines aircraft. The are several mentions of the Maintenance Center in Cheyenne, although no pictures. United did the modifications to the B-17's there during thee war. Thank you for sharing these photos.

[maxum96]

Thanks for sharing the pictures Mark. My grandmother worked there for United Airlines on the conversions. Unfortunately she passed away when I was young and didn't get a chance to talk to her about her experiences working there.

[p51]

What kills me is that I knew someone who had a matched set of these panels that had never been installed on a B-17, sitting in their garage when I lived in Florida. They had no idea what they were, didn't care much about them but WOULDN'T sell them at all because one of their grandfathers had given them to them before he died.
I hope they found loving homes eventually...

[AG pilot]

Great photos!

I never noticed the little flanges sticking out on either side of the new tail position before. What was the purpose of these? To create a slight vacuum around the gun area to pull powder gases away? To smooth the airflow of the new installation, by creating a burble?