B-17

The B-17 museum displays the second-last B-17 produced by Douglas Aircraft Corporation, serial number 44-83884 (483884). When I visited, it was bare aluminum, painted as the Yankee Doodle II, although it appears that the museum has repainted the plane in olive drab and rechristened her as Miss Liberty.

Never seeing service as an Army bomber, this plane did spend some time as a Navy sub hunter before being surplussed and used as a fire-fighting "borate bomber" until being flown to the museum in 1978.

The B-17 was converted back to a bomber for static display (although the top turret appears to be a "falsey"). The fabric on most of the bomber's control surfaces have been removed for restoration (or perhaps they've simply rotted off).

Aerial view. The museum seems to have painted the B-17 since my visit.