8 - B-17
Issue 8 - Boeing B-17: Contents
9 February 2011
Rolling Thunder... Shaping the bombers... The Boeing XB-15... In the beginning... The Boeing B-17 ‘Fortress’ in RAF service... Thorpe Abbotts – Memorial to the many... 52 Inside the B-17... Maintaining an aluminium mountain... The longest mission...100 Air Refuelling Wing... KG200... Project Aphrodite... PB-1s – The Navy and Coast Guard... Postwar workhorses...
Issue 8 - Boeing B-17: Editors Introduction
8 February 2011.
Rolling Thunder - Welcome to my first issue of Aviation Classics as editor. Firstly, I would like to record my thanks to Jarrod Cotter for his work in creating and editing this superb magazine, he is a remarkable man and a great aviation historian. He is also a good friend. Jarrod has moved on to take over the reins at Aeroplane and everyone on Aviation Classics wishes him the very best of luck with his new endeavour. Cheers, buddy.
Issue 8 - Boeing B-17: Shaping the bombers
7 February 2011.
Britain and the United States had different approaches to the same problem, which resulted in very different aircraft. Francois Prins explains…
Issue 8 - Boeing B-17: The B-17G - The thoroughbred emerges
6 February 2011.
The last mass produced version of the B-17 Flying Fortress was produced in more numbers than all the other versions put together. Of the 12,731 B-17s built, two thirds of them, 8760 were B-17Gs. The vulnerabilities of earlier models had been dealt with and the true thoroughbred had arrived.
Current Issue: Lockheed P-38 Lightning
On January 27, 1939, Lockheed test pilot Ben Kelsey took the prototype XP-38 Lightning into the air for the first time. The big, twin-engined, twin-boomed fighter was to become one of the most easily identifiable fighters of the Second World War, and was to be the only US fighter aircraft to remain in production throughout the conflict. Its unusual design had a number of advantages. The guns, being grouped close together in the nose, gave the P-38 a tremendous concentration of firepower. The tricycle undercarriage made ground handling simple when compared with the tailwheel designs common to the period. The P-38 was used across the world, undertaking long range fighter escort, fighter-bomber and reconnaissance missions in Europe as well as across the Pacific and Far East.
This issue of Aviation Classics tells the whole story of this ground breaking aircraft, as well as the people behind the development and operational success of this beautiful machine.
PLUS:
• Next issue on sale: 30th March 2012
