She's laying in pieces on the hangar floor.
August 28, 2008 3:59 PM   Subscribe

The Memphis Belle, the first B-17F Flying Fortress to complete 25 combat missions, is in the process of being restored. posted by god hates math (17 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Are they putting the big yellow cartoon tyres back on it too?
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:10 PM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite]


Yaaaaah! Killing machines!!!
posted by wfrgms at 4:26 PM on August 28, 2008


Cool. We did a WWII adventure student/teacher movie a few summers ago and the writer/director set a few scenes in and around a B-17. We found one passing through Lincoln, NE and the guy gave us free reign over it overnight. We could do whatever with it except push any buttons or pull any levers. It was awesome.

One of the actors asked if he could smoke on the tarmac and the grissled airport guy replied, "Wanna get blown up, son?"
posted by starman at 4:35 PM on August 28, 2008


A lot of people hate the movie "Memphis Belle" with its pretty boy cast. But I like it. Especially the scene with the guy who has been begging to use the tail gun, and when he gets a chance to do so, bags a Messerschmitt -- only to see it slice through another B-17 on its way down in flames: over the radio, he hears the screams of the American airmen plummeting to their deaths. What a jerk!
posted by Faze at 4:44 PM on August 28, 2008 [2 favorites]


About time! I had no idea, thanks.
posted by absalom at 4:56 PM on August 28, 2008


Yaaaaah! Killing machines!!!
posted by wfrgms at 4:26 PM on August 28 [+] [!]


In no small part due to those 'Killing machines' - and more importantly the people who flew in them - you have the right to say asinine things like 'Killing Machines'. Oh - and you're not speaking German as a native language.
posted by matty at 5:23 PM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite]


Yaaaaah! Killing machines!!!
posted by wfrgms at 4:26 PM on August 28 [+] [!]


You did it man! Fuck yeah!!
posted by basicchannel at 5:35 PM on August 28, 2008


...you're not speaking German as a native language.

One does not "speak" German. One "regurgitates" it.
posted by turgid dahlia at 5:42 PM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite]


Daaaah! Tötungmaschinen!
posted by matty at 5:42 PM on August 28, 2008 [5 favorites]


Oh - and you're not speaking German as a native language.

No matter how the dice fell in WWII, I don't think middle america were ever in real danger of Nazi occupation.
posted by absalom at 6:52 PM on August 28, 2008


Man, the Youtube clip of the B-17 flyover literally made me misty eyed. I am not nostalgic for the past, but these fine machines have a soul and spirit that has nothing to do with their use as machines of war. You have to feel the throb of those enormous radial engines in your chest, and you know there is a living being there.

These were machines that had to be wrestled with, but if you knew how to to fly them, could absolutely sing like angels. It's a lot like dancing. If you are clumsy, well you just aren't a dancer. My dad flew KB-50s, a refueler variant of the B-29. He told me about how he would adjust the trim to nose down and milk the last tiny bit of lift into forward thrust - he could stand the plane on it's wing and pass between two buildings less than 20 feet apart - and did. He got yelled at real good for that one.

It's astonishing how few of these there are, and how poorly we have taken care of them. We created them, and we are obligated to see them through to the end of time, in my opinion. And you get a real sense of how ingenious our grandparents were to see the kind of things they accomplished with metal, rubber, and bakelite. The digital age is awesome, but the golden age of analog was the 20th century, and I don't think we appreciate what we are losing with the passing of time.
posted by Xoebe at 6:57 PM on August 28, 2008 [2 favorites]


Oh - and you're not speaking German as a native language.

No matter how the dice fell in WWII, I don't think middle america were ever in real danger of Nazi occupation.
posted by absalom at 6:52 PM on August 28 [+] [!]


What, you never saw Red Dawn??? Well sure, that was the Russians - but it could HAPPEN MAN!!!

Wolverines!!!!!!
posted by matty at 7:02 PM on August 28, 2008 [1 favorite]


The Aluminum Overcast, a restored B-17, flies around the country, offering people rides and tours inside.

She flew over my office building several times when visiting my city and made for a beautiful sight. Later, I skipped out of work an hour early so I could make the walk-through tour of the plane. The plane was much smaller than one imagines, when seeing them in the air and what not, and it was rather cramped inside. You watch Memphis Belle and it seemed absolutely spacious.
posted by Atreides at 7:47 PM on August 28, 2008


I couldn't get past the two (imo major) factual errors in the 1990 movie:

Dennis warns the crew not to go without their oxygen masks. Throughout the movie, most of them do. At a service altitude of 25,000 feet any B-17 crew member who went without oxygen for more than one minute would lapse into unconsciousness. After twenty minutes, they would be dead.

These bombers were flying at a very high altitude. The air at that altitude was extremely cold. In fact, many wounded airmen survived because their blood would freeze and therefore stop the bleeding. Due to the fact that the cabin was not pressurized, this necessitated the need for oxygen,"bomber's jackets" and gloves. Under NO circumstances would airmen remove their gloves to touch metal because their skin would instantly adhere to any exposed metal at that altitude/temperature.
--from moviemistakes.com
posted by Devils Slide at 5:27 AM on August 29, 2008


Twenty or thirty years ago the Memphis Belle was sitting in an uncut patch of weeds just off the run way next the the FedEx hub at the Memphis airport. It was just sitting there about 30 or so yards off of Democrat Rd.. I'd pass it every night on my way to and from work but had no idea of it's history until they undertook the first restoration and moved it to Mud Island.
posted by Carbolic at 12:30 PM on August 29, 2008


Funny thing: I just uploaded a whole bunch of photos I took of the work-in-progress Memphis Belle while taking a tour of the Wright Patterson AFB restoration hangar back in June. They'd been sitting on my hard drive for the better part of a month, and finally got around to uploading them to my Flickr account last night. I haven't managed to get them properly labeled/tagged yet, but here they are for those interested:

Here's the Belle's rear fuselage in pieces, with wiring gutted, and paint fully scraped:
Pic 1, Pic 2

Close-ups of the fuselage, with as-yet unbuffed graffiti left during the Belle's post-service victory tours:
Pic 3, Pic 4

The nose section:
Pic 5

The Belle's main instrument panel, partially restored using genuine B-17 parts donated by a collector:
Pic 6

And here's the ones you've been waiting for! The Belle's nose art, carefully preserved along with swastika/bomb tally marks:
Pic 7, Pic 8

The real kicker, though? Just forty feet away, they were also restoring the scuffed-up carcass of the Army/Air Force's goofy-looking 1960s flying saucer prototype, twin bubble-domes and all. Strange world.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:23 PM on August 29, 2008


Those are pretty cool, Strange Interlude. Thanks.
posted by god hates math at 7:35 PM on August 30, 2008


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