Tim's Aviation Page

This page is a bit on the small side right now, so all of the information I have here will be on this page. Once I get more stuff online, I'll probably just make this an index to the individual items. Enjoy!

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Here is an interesting story that relates a bit about the handling characteristics of a B-17 as related by co-pilot Charles Seymour (from B-17 Fortress at War by Roger A. Freeman):

We were on an air-to-air gunnery mission at Casper, wyoming, where we were required to fire at a tow-target pulled by another '17. The procedure was to fly parallel with the target plane, off to the side and above, then peel off, come down, letting the forward guns of the aircraft fire, making a tight turn around the back of the sleeve and as we went away the idea was that the waist gunner, and eventually the tail gunner, could get a shot at the target. We did this once or twice but on our next go, while in a steep bank we had a high speed stall, a snap and a spin from which we didn't recover until some 10,000 feet later. When Ivan recovered from the spin, the tail gunner called: "GEE, that was fun. Let's do it again", although I don't think the rest of the crew were that enthused about the manoeuvre. Anyway, we flew straight and level for a while, got the aircraft trimmed up, and returned to base without further incident. Other member of our Group, who had been up there flying near is and had seen the B-17 spin into the clouds below, thought that they had seen the last of us. We found that the rear fuselage had been twisted so that the tail was some twenty degrees out of true. Also the wing tips had been bent up about four feet giving added dihedral. the Boeing reps took a look and decided the aircraft was no longer airworthy. .....'

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Last modified 18 February 1996.