Ok, well you see that big black fuel tank sitting on the pallets in Dean's post above, yeah that's installed in the airplane now and has fuel in it!!

We got the #3 fuel tank installed today and transferred some fuel in it to leak check it and no leaks, runs, drips or errors! We pressurized the fuel systems on #1, #3, and #4 to leack check them while we had power on and also to get fuel to carburetors to keep the diaphragms inside nice and pliable. It was great to see some big parts going back on and to see the old girl starting to come back to life and hearing boost pumps and the transfer pump running.
We have an air duct to repair (you can actually see it on the yellow workstand to the left in Dean's picture) and get installed before we can install the #2 tank, but we hope to have that done tomorrow. Since several of us have the day off for the holiday we're going to take advantage of it and try to get some more work done on the B-17. The fuel tanks were removed to gain access to the spar bolts. Each tank holds 213 gallons, and when empty, actually are not that heavy, they're just bulky and difficult to handle. We basically get about 4 guys and wrestle it up into position and install the cross members that support it on the bottom. Once that's done there are hoses, bonding straps, cannon plugs (boost pump and fuel qty sending unit) to be connected.
I didn't get any pictures of it, but I will take some tomorrow before we put the access door (aforementioned stress panel) on and post them.
Hopefully more pictures of more progress in the next week or two. Thanks for reading about us and keeping up with us.