B-17 Ground School at Museum of Flight, Puget Sound

[Wedge1126]

http://www.museumofflight.org/event/2012/may/19/boeing-b-17-ground-school

Time: Saturday, May 19, 2012 - 8:30am - 5:00pm

Event Type: Special Event

Location: Museum of Flight

Museum B-17 experts and pilots will conduct an original, 2-day course in the history, design, construction, operation and performance of the Boeing B-17 bomber. Weekend sessions include detailed briefings about the aircraft, combat mission flight planning and the way the bomber was used in World War II. The course features personal tours inside of the Museum’s Flying Fortress led by veteran B-17 crew members and the Museum’s restoration team, and the course includes a flight in the Experimental Aircraft Association’s B-17, Aluminum Overcast while it is based at the Museum May 25 through 28.

It's on May 19 and 20. When I signed up, there were 9 more seats available.

[B4Buster]

That sounds like a blast. There's never anything cool like that around here. 

[JMD413]

That would be incredibly fun.  I was looking at their website homepage and if I ever wind up in Seattle, I will definitely put the Museum of Flight at the top of my list of things to do! 

Thanks for sharing! 

[Buckaroo]

That is a nice museum.  I was there in 2006.  It is almost as good as the one in Washington, D.C.

The old Army airfield in Boca Raton, Florida developed the radar for the B-17 and tested it there.  I lived there for 10 years in the 1950's and never knew that.  Atlantic University now occupies that old airbase.

[Zacherof]

Thats my favorite museum.  Make sure to get a patty melt at the restruant next to it. great food and an awsome atmospere

[Wedge1126]

You must be talking about Randy's. They have a bunch of model warbirds hanging from the ceiling and other aviation memorabilia.

[Brooke]

Wedge, how about an AAR?

I wish I could have joined you for it.

[icepac]

That would have been cool to attend.

I was at cherokee (north of atlanta) and got to look at this up close.

Seems to still be running turbochargers.

[Wedge1126]

I had my flight on Aluminum Overcast on Sunday. The view from the Bombardier's position was awesome!
I took a lot of pictures during the class and the flight. I'll try to post them later this week.

[Wedge1126]

Boeing B-17F Familiarization Ground School AAR


Day 1

• Brief presentation on the history of the B-17. (Mike Lavelle, program coordinator)
• Overview of the design, construction, and main component locations. (Herb Phelan, crew chief)
  This presentation covered the fuselage, wings, landing gear and the interior compartments. Basically, how to find your way around the airplane.
• Interior and exterior aircraft inspection.
  We were divided into 5 groups of 2-3 and rotated around different locations on the airplane with one of the instructors. My group was assigned to Bob Martin. Bob seemed to know what every little thing on the airplane was for. Very knowledgeable. Also, that catwalk in the bomb bay is smaller than you'd think.
• Lunch
  I ate at the museum cafe. Don't eat there if you can help it. I knew better, but it was a busy day and I didn't want to lose my parking spot.
• Powerplants, turbos, oil and props. (Gary Dawson)
  Now, we're getting to some detailed material. We started with an exploded view of an engine and learn just about what every little part is for. Then we moved onto the carburetor and auto-mixture control. Continuing on, we looked at air intake and exhaust air flow through the turbo system, the oil system, and finally the constant speed propeller. There was alot of excellent material in this presentation and too much to go into detail.
• Fuel system (Alan Peover)
  I learned the locations of the 6 fuel tanks, how they are connected, and the fuel transfer system. Interesting fact is you can only transfer fuel from a tank in one wing to a tank in the other wing. To transfer fuel from a tank in one wing to a tank in the same wing, you have to first transfer the fuel to a tank in the other wing. The flight engineer manipulating the controls behind the pilots, but there's no fuel gauges there. Instead the copilot reads the fuel from the instrument panel. Also, there is only a single fuel gauge. You use a selector switch to choose which tank to display on the gauge.
• Electrical system (Alan Peover)
  Four generators and 3 batteries supply electrical power to hydraulic pump, undercarriage, tail-wheel, flaps, gun turrets, inverters, bomb doors, fuel boost pumps, and fuel shut off valves. Feels like just about everything is electrical in the B-17.
• Hydraulics system (Alan Peover)
  The hydraulics system operates just two things on the B-17: the wheel brakes and cowl flaps.

Day 2

• Operational environmental systems (Bob Martin)
  Bob brought in a personal collection of gear that a crewman would wear. For warmth, crewman wore an electrically heated suit over their uniform. On top of that, they wore thick gloves, jacket, pants, and boots. The heated suit plugged into an electrical outlet that was present at each station. For oxygen, crewman had an oxygen mask that attached to a hose at each station. If you needed to move around, you could plug into a portable O2 bottle that would last about 8 minutes. Each crewman had to constantly monitor the blinker (flow indicator) of not just their own oxygen but their buddy's.
  Each wing has a leading edge de-icing boot and the windshield and propellers have alcohol anti-icing systems.
• Armament and ordinance (George Bowling)
  The upper and lower turrets have range computing gunsights. The tail gunner sits/kneels on a bicycle seat and reaches around an armored plate to grab the triggers. Tail gunner has the worst shot grouping. Ball turret has the tightest grouping. 42 bomb positions on bomb rack. Configuration depends on mission loadout.
• Communication and navigation systems (Dale Thompson)
  Command Radios - for ship to ship communications, controlled from cockpit, antenna runs to the vertical stab
  Liason radio - long range communications, morse code only, trailing antenna prefered but can also use wing antenna
  Navigation radio - loop antenna with sense antenna, detect direction of a tuned radio signal
  Marker beacon - beacon antenna under fuselage between ball turret and tail wheel, used to detect when near home airfield
  Intercom - each position has a selector switch to choose a radio to listen to. The choices are radio compass, liason, command, intercom, and Call. Call is spring loaded and must be held down to use. It mutes other transmissions so the whole crew will hear you. Used for urgent messages from crewmen.
  
• Lunch
  Went to Randy's this time.
• Vintage training films
  We watched films about ground operations and flying the B-17. We were each given a copy of the DVD to take home with us.
• Aircraft systems orientation
  We went back out to the airplane and rotated between stations. This time the instructors stayed in the area of their expertise and answered questions.
• Course wrap-up

Photos
The first photo album are pictures taken during the ground school and features the Museum of Flight's B-17F. The second album is from my flight on Aluminum Overcast the following weekend.

• Ground School with The Boeing Bee
  
• Flight on Aluminum Overcast

[Brooke]

Wedge, were you up in the B-17 on Sunday May 27th at about noon?

My wife and I had the babies in the stroller, heading to a neighborhood park when I heard engine noises.  I stopped and said, "That's a B-17!"  We waited to get a view of the plane, and it was a B-17 flying over our neighborhood.  I told my wife that my pal Wedge was up there in that plane, and she waved her arms at it as it passed overhead at about 1000-2000 ft.

[Brooke]

Thanks for the excellent writeup and pics! <S>

[Wedge1126]

Wedge, were you up in the B-17 on Sunday May 27th at about noon?

My wife and I had the babies in the stroller, heading to a neighborhood park when I heard engine noises.  I stopped and said, "That's a B-17!"  We waited to get a view of the plane, and it was a B-17 flying over our neighborhood.  I told my wife that my pal Wedge was up there in that plane, and she waved her arms at it as it passed overhead at about 1000-2000 ft.

Yup! That was me!

Looking at the timestamps on the photos shows that I was in bombardier's position at 12:00pm.
Takeoff was 11:44am and landing was 12:06pm.

[Brooke]

Yup! That was me!

Looking at the timestamps on the photos shows that I was in bombardier's position at 12:00pm.
Takeoff was 11:44am and landing was 12:06pm.

Heh!  I located where your pictures were taken based on landmarks (like buildings in the view).  In the picture captioned "engines 1 and 2 from navigator/bombardier", the large building is a shopping center down the street from my house, you have just passed over us, and I'm looking up saying "My pal Wedge is up in that B-17."