Pictures taken with a Mustek digital camera. The large picture was taken with the fine setting and then converted to a jpg with PSP. The small pictures were taken with the standard setting and then converted to gifs(to save space) with PSP.

B17g at Ankeny Airfield near Des Moines, Iowa (no, not my kids). Owned by the EAA and painted with the colors of the 398th, squadron of the 8th. This particular plane never saw service during the war, but in its past was used to haul cargo in the Caribbean, as a platform for high alt land survey in the Middle East, and as an aerial cropduster and fire jumper.

Upon climbing into the hatch I found myself looking out the nose of the plane from the bombardier and navigator's position. You can see the bombardier's chair and part of the Nordon sticking out above it. The handle in the cone window are the controls for the chin turret. You can also see the ammo belt going to one of the cheek guns.

I climbed up through a small hole and into the cockpit. There was a lot less room than I expected up here with lots of dials, cable, and wiring running all over.

Behind the pilots is a door leading into the bombbay. Here you can see the bombs ready to go (bay doors are open). From here I walked across the catwalk also seen here.

On the other side of the bay was the engineer and radioman's position. The fortress was restored to 1945 standards including this equipment. The only thing missing from the plane was the top turret unit that would have been between the pilots and the bombbay.

This the the starboard side waist gunner looking rearward. There were even 50 cals in all the gun belts.

This is looking down the tail. I wanted to go back there, but they wouldn't let me. You can see 2 brown boxes in the picture, these held the ammo for the 2 tail guns, and the gunner sat between them on a bicycle like seat, kneeling. The 'lump' in the lower left of the pic is where the tail wheel folds up into.

Here we are looking back up the plane all the way throught the cockpit. You can see the bottom ball turret unit.

The stinger of the plane. I was amazed at the degree of visibility the tail gunner had.

This is the bottom ball turret. The gunner laid on his back with his shoulders resting on a strap across the hatch openning. His feet were above the rest of his body and he aimed between his knees. There is no way I could have fit in there.

Another shot of the ball turret from the nose looking back at the open bombbay, bombs included. For some reason the bay doors had no hydraulics restored to them.

Outside close up of the chin turret and the best view in the house while flying.

The plane was in very nice shape with all kinds of shiny parts in the restored engines.

Aluminum Overcast was really B17G-#42-102516 of the 398th that was shot down over France on its 34th mission, 8-13-1944


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