Posted by Keith in Washington on Friday, September 29, 2006 at 11:18AM :
In Reply to: B17 Bomber pictures! posted by Todd Wilson on Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 3:17PM :
My dad was a flight test engineer on the B17 for Boeing in WWII. His specific task was to reduce the exhaust flame coming out. The Germans use to use the exhaust flame to sight there guns on. It was interesting to here him talk about his work. One attempt failed and he had huge flames coming out of the exhaust.
He spent many hours in a belly turrent observing the exhaust under many different flight conditions. He had a boss that was a real pain in the arse. Was very political and played a lot of favorites wich was the opposite of my dad. One day he kicked my dad off a flight so that he could put his favorite guy on it. The plane ended up crashing into the match factory at the end of the runway. All died. His boss really changed after that apparently.
I took my dad on a B17 fight several years ago. It was really interesting to watch his reactions. It was a fun day for him and my younger brother. It was kind of funny during the orientation for the flight. They gave information about the plane and stated that the max cieling for the plane was 38 or 39 thousand feet. My dad just looked at them and said nope he had been 5K feet higher than that in one. They came back and said that the plane could not do that. My dad simply stated he was correct and that he had been a flight test engineer for Boeing on the B17.