B-17 “Flying Fortress” arrives in Texas

March 24, 2011 by Leave a Comment

There is more than vintage aircraft, a skydiver jump team and remote controlled aircraft to this weekend’s Jasper air show. World War II era bombers and modern military aircraft will be on the ground and in the air. The B-17 in particular, brings back memories for those who flew it.

The “Texas Raiders” B-17 touched down at the Jasper County Airport, Saturday, giving East Texans a chance to re-visit her power and beauty.

“I was raised on a farm and never did see planes hardly ever, let alone get to ride in them so that you know, gave me a chance to go,” expressed Carl Doyle as he remembers what it was like to fly aboard the B-17 bomber more than 60 years ago.

The World War II veteran joined the Air Force toward the end of the war, and served as a weather observer. Still, he got his chance to fly.

“The B-17 had a boat on the bottom to go out and drop down if one of the planes went down and every time I got a chance, I was on it,” said Doyle.

Donald Lee Hell, who spent 1,000 hours flying the bomber with the Coast Guard, rescuing lost ships and planes will take any opportunity to pay a visit to the B-17.

Donald Lee Hill

“Flying in one for that many hours, you just like to go look at them again,” said Hell.

She may be beautiful but the vintage aircraft was also a potent weapon that dropped more bombs than any other U.S. aircraft in World War II.

Helping to educate the people about the bomber public information officer Sandy Thompson explained that “it was called the Flying Fortress possibly because it took so much flack and stood up as a fortress in the war and those that were built, a very few remaining today.”

Source: ktre.com

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B-17 Bombers: Conquering the Virtual World

November 12, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The B-17 Flying Fortress ( B-17 Flying Fortress World War II Bombers in Action) is a flight simulation/role play video game released in 1992. The game simulates training, combat missions and sorties in a tour of duty in the Eighth Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces in the European Theater of Operations aboard a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber during World War II.

The simulation is so complex that the player has to have some of the same knowledge (yet only partial and simplified) as the aircrews performed as Pilots, Copilots, Bombardiers, Navigators, Flight Engineers, Radio Operators and Aerial Gunners during that historical time frame.

As an interesting sideline note one of the technical advisors to the development of the simulation. Dominic Robinson, Technical Director for B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th was listed in the software credits for the original title and Andrew Walrond was the Managing Director in the sequel.

Its sequel came out in the year 2000 – B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th . It had much improved graphics for Intel Pentium III and AMD Athlon processors and added fairly realistic but slightly simplified Norden Bombsight/navigation procedures and operation as well as Pilot and Copilot controls in the combat flight simulation.

Other Allied or Axis aircraft like the P-38, P-51, P-47, Bf-109, FW-190 or Me 262 could be flown as well. The emphasis in this simulation was on successful B-17 Flying Fortress aircrew training and skill improvement, successful navigation, survival from enemy Flak batteries as well as Luftwaffe fighters, and correctly and accurately bombing the right target (aiming point) and making it back to the home base airfield through a simulated tour of duty in the Eighth Air Force.

The game is very similar in its gameplay to the original B-17 Flying Fortress simulation except that the controls are a lot more detailed, complicated and realistic in addition to the vastly improved computer graphics and multimedia sound effects(with support for Aureal A3D driver sound).

- Wikipedia
-TrueKnowledge

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