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The B-17 - A Historical Perspective
By Joe "Impaler" HighmanWell, looking out the radio room is nice, but I want to be where the action is. So I made a beeline for the front of the plane. One thing that movies mislead you about concerns the dimensions of the interior. One might think that such a large plane would be roomy inside, but in fact, the opposite holds true. The interior is cramped and it took slow, deliberate effort to move around from station to station. The catwalk in the bomb bay is only a little wider than a gymnast’s balance beam.Once in the cockpit, I was invited to don a Communications set, a headset with boom microphone with a “push-to-talk” switch. Being a local, I advised the pilot on some navigational issues and within moments, our Fort was cruising 2000 feet above our town square. The flight crew banked the plane into a mild 20-degree right turn, came to rest at our cruising altitude of roughly 3500 feet and set an indicated air speed of just over 150 miles per hour.The navigation situation resolved, I then moved down a narrow passageway beneath the feet of the pilots that leads into the nose of the B17. I bashed my head on the overhanging bulkhead, and between quiet curses, I asked a profound question… how the heck did anyone ever get out of one of these things if it were in trouble? Unbelievable courage those young men owned! The nose was surprisingly roomy, and at one point, I shared this compartment with three other passengers. Again, let me emphasize that there are some things that a simulation, regardless of quality, simply cannot give you.The view from the nose of the ship is a spectacular sight. The entire nose section is clear Plexiglas, and as one assumes the Bombardier position, one realizes rather quickly that this is the best seat in the house (except perhaps the belly turret gunner!) The navigator shared this section of the aircraft and had a fairly nice area to work in. When not engaged in plotting course corrections or computing air speeds, the navigator would man up to two .50 caliber machine guns mounted on either side of the glass nose.About 30 minutes into the flight, we turned and headed for the airfield, but something seemed amiss. We were on a line with the airfield, but we were lined up on the shortest of the four runways and a quick glance at the bombardier’s computer revealed an air speed of close to 220 miles per hour.