Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress

In reading the crew interrogation reports of the 306th Bombardment group for 12 Dec 1942, I found that two different crews (McKay's and Warner's) report that their life raft came out and destroyed the ship's command antenna.

What does this mean? Came out - of the aircraft? If so, how?

What was the function of the command antenna?

Tommy

The life rafts on B-17s are stored deflated in compartments above the bomb bay, a outward-opening door on each side of the upper fuselage covering them when not in use.
To deploy them in an emergency there are a pair of T-handles up by the ceiling of the radio room. pulling one releases the latches of the relevant door, allowing the rolled raft to be ejected and begin to inflate from a CO2 cylinder.

There were many cases of rafts deploying in flight, either from combat damage, incorrectly adjusted release mechanisms or simply having the handles pulled accidentally.
At least one B-17 is known to have been brought down by it's own raft fouling the tail surfaces.

The Command Radio, the antenna for which runs from the starboard side of the radio room up to the top of the fin, is a short-range (about 30 miles) voice set, primarily for communicating with nearby aircraft and the control tower when closer to home.
For communication at longer ranges the Liaison Set was used, sometimes with voice but usually by morse.

All the best,
PB

The Command Radio would have been VHF and the Liason Radio HF; is that so?

Mystery B-17 Object ?

I visited the 493BG Museum at Debach today, and amongst the various bits and pieces recovered from the airfield were two similar objects that they have not been able to identify. The objects are presumed to have come from a B-17.

As you can see from the photographs, the objects were circular and an arrow marked "TO WINDWARD" is stamped onto the surface. A wire leading to something in the centre of the object is visible on the second object.

Does anyone know (or can give an educated guess) as to what these objects may be please ?

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Top of a Glim Lamp.

Thanks very much Paul. I'll let the curious folks at Debach know what they are and what they were used for.

Now that you've identified the mystery objects, I found a Glim Lamps thread on AIX here .

I also found some more pictures of Glim Lamps elsewhere (with a post from your good self) here .

BTW Do you (or anyone else) know if "Glim" is an abbreviation for "glimmer", or is it some sort of acronym e.g. Ground Level Illuminated Marker ?

All the best,

Steve

A few of Sally B that I took on various Duxford visits -


Cheers
Steve

In the mid to late 1980's I had the opportunity to work in Milwaukee and had been assigned to a factory that had made Allis Chalmers air craft super chargers during WW2 located in West Electric Avenue.

The senior engineer assigned as my guide ( who was about to retire ) had told me that he had flown as a B17 crew member in the Pacific during WW2.

One of his retirement objectives was to support a group in Chicago who were rebuilding a rare model of B17 that had been used in the Pacific region.

No one I had spoken to since that visit knew anything about this group ~ until last night when I received the following link.

www.usaaf.com/b17/index.htm

Dave.

Sally B at Leicester Airshow 1979 -



Steve

The USAAF operated the B17 with two pilots, did the RAF?