Warbird Information Exchange

There's a fairly common photograph (I believe aerovin has a copy) of the prototype C-74 Globemaster being rolled out at the Douglas plant in Long Beach; parked in the background are several B-17s minus engines and outer wing panels with "57700" series tail numbers.

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

..and that is a"checkable" rumour if one is adept with the technology we
have at our fingertips. A satellite thermal image of that area of Walnut Ridge
should help in a confirmation of those trenches. I forget where in the Middle East
where such technology relocated the old Spice Road..I think it was Saudi
Arabia...there are other instances in archeology where such techniques
were handy. I wish I knew a 12yr old Nerd with the interest to persue it...

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He bowls overhand...He is the most interesting man in the world.
"In Peace Japan Breeds War", Eckstein, Harper and Bros., 3rd ed. 1943(1927, 1928,1942)
"Leave it to ol' Slim. I got ideas...and they're all vile, baby." South Dakota Slim
"Ahh..."The Deuce", 28,000 pounds of motherly love." quote from some Mojave Grunt
DBF

Reference the B-17Gs being scrapped at Long Beach with the FY 1945 serial numbers:

A general scene of the scrapping in progress:



And a blow-up of the right side showing the tail of B-17G s/n 45-7711:



Just one case of many where the AAF cancelled contracts abruptly in the late summer of 1945, leaving undelivered airplanes in various stages of assembly, up to and including ready-to-fly.

Back in the late 1970s by father and his partner acquired one of the Honduran F4U-5NL projects and hauled it back to St. Louis. It did not take long for them to realize that they were missing some hard to find items, unique to the -5 but they did have some -4 parts that came with the project to trade. Once they ran out of -4 parts and could not afford to purchase the rare -5 parts, they started looking for trading material. One of the guys helping restore the -5 told some crazy story about a pile of Emerson turret parts in a scrap yard downtown. We all looked for it, ran down a bunch of leads, never found anything. Ten years later, while helping restore Evergreen's B-17G, I spent some vacation time back in St. Louis chasing more BS rumors about the "mythical" pile of Emerson turret parts. Nothing ever came of that search either. Fast forward about twelve more years to 2005, I've been back in St. Louis working for over a decade and, oh no, not another turret parts rumor. This time there was a phone number and street address to check out. What the heck, I was downtown on a sales call anyway. So the parts were there, the rumor was true. Granted, it's not a P-51 in a crate, it's just a bunch of small turret parts but well worth saving. Having said all this, I'm still not buying the story of the B-32 on the moon and I'm pretty sure Elvis is really dead, and come to think of it, I don't feel so great myself.

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Albert Stix Jr.
"Work is the curse of the drinking class"

While looking for some info I came across a few years ago ,I just found this info on the scrapings
http://wingsofhonor.org/victory.aspx

Newsreel of the actual scrapings
http://www.buyoutfootage.com/pages/titles/pd_nr_130.html

highly interesting !

from Baugher's site:

45-7701/8300 Douglas-Long Beach B-17G-100-DL Fortress
Contract cancelled


Martin

Whoa! Glad I specified ". . . that I'm aware of"!

However, I won't go so far as to say, "I stand corrected" - yet.

Before I do, is there a photo or film of one of these "1945 serial B-17s" rolling off the assembly line? . . . as in "new complete" as the original post that I responded to specified?

Douglas records show that 44-83885 was the last B-17G to roll off the assembly line. In fact, 885 left Douglas so fast that "my" bird, '884 (second to the last Douglas-built) was used in the "last off the assembly line" photos (as seen in Scott Thompson's book - think that's his name). '884 went off to the Navy as a PB-1W (as did Texas Raiders).

That excludes the piles of parts shown in the photos above, but I'll play Devil's Advocate here.

May be splitting hairs (kudos to me for being the first aviation enthusiast ever to do so!), but I know I'm not the only one who enjoys a little anal "accuracy" every once in a while.

Wade

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Wade,
NOTHING wrong with being anal! History IS the details. Anecdotes may be true, but usually are not.
Lindbergh's book Spirit of St Louis is mostly anecdotal but is 99% of the time wrong. Places and people generally correct, but the facts do not support his claims. Interesting, since Lindberh KEPT EVERYTHING he ever wrote on. Why he didn't refere to them while compiling his versions of events?????Rather he chose the recollections of others (Hall, the designer wanna be) and the PRESS (????) of the period, you know that thing he supposedly escewed.
I'm not bashing Lindbergh. Just mystified as why he wrote what he did the way he did. Inlight of what the Historic Flight Project has uncovered, ALL of his writtings are suspect. History has been forever scewed. Scott Berg and others have only promoted the untruths. No one did any primary research or bother to check even basic facts.

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Charles Neely

Charlie,

At the risk of slinging this thread off kilter (if I didn't already!), I rather enjoyed Berg's book - what are some of the errors? Not 'challenging' you, I'd just like to know ... as a Lindy fan, but not scholar.

Also, did Bruno do it - or was it LINDY HIMSELF, as some wackos (??) have put forth?

Wade,
forever stirring the puddin'

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It's a mind boggeling thing...

Picture from the "Walnut Ridge Army Flying School Museum" website

More here...http://www.walnutridge-aaf.com/military2.htm

It's a mind boggeling thing...

Picture from the "Walnut Ridge Army Flying School Museum" website

More here...http://www.walnutridge-aaf.com/military2.htm

I guess this should answer the question:



Enhanced portion; five airframes, but only readable number is 45-7706:



So they weren't "completed" airframes per se, but more than just separate components.

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

Wade,

Without getting too deep, let me say that both Spirit of St Louis and Scott Berg's book, both of which won Pullitzers for "non-fiction" are fantastic reads and emensly enjoyable. I grew up in a houshold that lionized CAL as a hero. No doubt the former had a great influence on my own aviation interests. My dad, who was a pilot from the age of 18, must have told me a zillion times about how he ran along side his car when the Colonel returned to San Diego.

However, putting sentiment aside, one must put historical integrity over all. There is no hstorical evidence that Lindberh had extensive input into the Spirit's design. Donald Hall appears to have intentionally inflated his role in the "design" of the airplane in his famous NACA report. Both CAL and Berg aquiess to Hall's statements. Berg , who claimed to have unlimited access to Lindbergh documents appears to have ignored anything that contradicts the accepted (SOL) version. I have personally held copies of letters Berg references as proof of a certain view, yet misses contextual comment to the contrary. These things are not ambiguous.

One of the main tennants of SOL is that Lindbergh took off without being properly qualified, regarding the proper waiting or time period between entry and take off (min 60 days). This is a totally unsupportrd tennant. He was qualified, even by the oft shown entry form. Lindbergh dated the document at the top and most use that date. However, the notorised (legal) date is much earlier on the SAME document. Also the the certificate that accompanied the infamous Ortieg Prize check states he met ALL qualifications and rules. So we have to ask Who 's telling the truth? Upon examination, nearly every account detailed by CAL and Promulgated as absalute truth by those blinded by the fame(Berg included) do not square with the copius documents saved by the famous airman. BTW- we have all eight (seven non published) versions penned by CAL as th eSpirit of St Louis. They do not agree on MANY salient points.

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Charles Neely

Works for me. They scrapped nearly complete B-17s at Long Beach, but '885 was the last one to roll out the doors com-plete.



Charlie,

Sounds like an Air & Space article to me . . . get ta writin'!

Bottom line is the guy got in a crate and did something that at the time was the equivilent of flying to the freaking moon almost - and he was the first to do it solo. All the little "diseased" trees cited above, and I'm sure there's more in this story (what story like this doesn't have it's 'discrepancies'?), do not, to me, obscure that forest. He did it.

Didn't CAL's grandson or somesuch recently fly a Lancair (or whatever) across the Atlantic solo ... but with more bells and whistles than Neil and freakin' Buzz had? (yawn)

Wade

PS: As I say, I'd love to see an in-depth examination of "the trees" of the CAL/solo flight story.

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