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The B-17 was the first truly modern heavy bomber and one of the most recognized airplanes ever built. It was the first four-engine bomber put into production for the Army Air Corps but gained its greatest fame for daylight strategic bombings over Europe. On August 20, 1935, the prototype was flown to Wright Field for its official tests, flying 2,100 miles nonstop in nine hours, but the prototype crashed on October 30, when a gust lock was inadvertently left on the elevators and the airplane went out of control on takeoff. The first airplanes were delivered to the 2d Bomb Group at Langley Field, Va., in 1937. In December 1941, Maj. Truman H. Landon led a flight of unarmed B-17s to reinforce Hawaii. The planes were nearly out of gas as they landed at Wheeler Field in the middle of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Subsequently, B-17 production ramped up quickly, and the aircraft was used in great numbers in every theater of the war. On January 27, 1943, Eighth Air Force B-17 crews made the first American air raid on Germany. The B-17G, the most produced version, featured additional guns in an attempt to prevent some of the heavy losses that had been inflicted on the earlier models. One of the more unusual modifications was the conversion of at least 25 war-weary B-17s into BQ-7 Aphrodite radio-controlled missiles, which were loaded with 12,000 lbs of high explosives and used against the German U-boat pens. B-17s were used by the Navy and the Army Air Forces for sea-air rescue. While the B-17 was essential to winning the war, the type was obsolete by 1945 and disappeared almost overnight, although a few remained in service for several years.

Jirka Wagner