B-17 in WW II - How to fly the B-17

I found this intact WW II era training video on flying the B-17 on youtube recently. The video takes just under 30 minutes. I enjoyed it, there is a short educational cartoon in the middle of the video. I soak up everything I can about the planes that I write about, and the B-17 is no exception. So, watching this video was a real treat. Of course, I do keep in mind that this is a training video, the idea being to lay a solid foundation for the pilots in preparation for the difficulties in flying the bomber in bombing runs during WW II. Revised December 29, 2021: The link that I originally shared  on flying the B17  from archives dot org no longer works, but I found what I hope is a similar video on Youtube.



Direct link to video from AirBoyd on YouTube

Not being a pilot (nor am I B-17 pilot) I can’t speak to whether the training video reflects what it is like to fly the B-17, whether it be as a WW II bomber or as an airtanker. While I am not exactly intimately familiar with what is involved in flying multi-engine airplanes, I have enough of a sense of multi-engine airplanes to have an idea of what they are talking about in the video. That was helpful to me as I watched the video. If you have an in interest in aviation and/or historic aircraft, then I think you will enjoy watching the video.

Roger A. Freeman, in his 1977 book, B-17 Fortress at War has a section where surviving crew members discusses their specific role as a B-17 crew member. Pilot, James W. Johnson offers his impressions on flying the B-17:

The Fortress inspired a tremendous confidence. It was the only propeller driven aircraft I have flown that was completely viceless; there was no undesirable flight characteristics. The directional stability was excellent, properly trimmed, the B-17 could be taken-off, landed and banked without change of trim. Both ailerons and elevators were particularly responsive for such a large multi-engined airplane, so there was normally no effort at the wheel even at quite high altitudes. The B-17G was a totally predictable aircraft. Most warplanes were given to some scary situations and you could, of course, get into trouble with any of them. But in normal circumstances, you had to be a really sloppy pilot to get into trouble with a B-17 (Freeman 1977, 114).

Of interest to me was getting an idea of how the pilot and co-pilot work together. Each have jobs to do, and they often work from check-lists. For example, Jim Fletcher (co-pilot of a B-17 in WW II) describes some of the tasks that the co-pilot did (Freeman 1977, pp. 116-9). The co-pilot works with the pilot where the pilot may ask the co-pilot to do a certain task on the appropriate check-list. These tasks included but are not limited to:

• priming and then starting each engine after the pre-flight and start-up checks,
• check propeller feathering,
• magneto and turbo checks for each engine,
• operates the tail wheel lock during taxiing,
• locks tail wheel just prior to lift-off,
• retracts the landing gear,
• opening or closing the cowl flaps,
• monitoring and adjusting the power systems,
• sharing flying time with the pilot(Freeman 1977, pp. 116-9).

Here is some information that you might find useful to explain some of the terms that are referred to in this article:

1. parts of an airplane. Note that this page includes some parts that the B-17 did not have (e.g. slats and spoilers).
2. wikipedia on airplane magnetos
3. wikipedia on trim tabs.
4. I went to Jablonski to find a description of the turbosuperchargers in the B-17. Jablonski is discussing the B-17 flew at high altitudes up to 30 or even 35,000 feet: "At this high altitude also, turbosuperchargers--one per each engine--were employed to provide sea-level air pressure. The outside air was drawn into the supercharger through intercooler air intakes in the wing’s leading edge and compressed to the proper pressure before being fed into the engine’s carburetor" (Jablonski 1965, 315).
   

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References:

1. Roger A. Freeman, 1977, B-17 Fortress at War (Great Britain: Charles Scribner’s Sons)
2. Edward Jablonski, 1965, Flying Fortress: the Illustrated Biography of the B-17s and the Men Who Flew Them (Garden City NY: Doubleday and Co.)