Gallery No 11- Flying Fortress

Specifications:
Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress
Dimensions:
Wing span: 103 ft. 9 in (31.6 m)
Length: 74 ft. 9 in (22.8 m)
Height: 19 ft. 1 in (5.8 m)
Wing Area: 1,420 sq ft (132 sq m)
Weights:
Empty: 32,720 lb (14,855 kg)
Normal Loaded: 49,500 lb (22,475 kg)
Maximum Overloaded: 60,000 lb (27,240 kg)
Performance:
Maximum Speed: 295 m.p.h. (472 km/h) at 25,000 ft (7,625 m)
Service Ceiling: 35,000 ft (10,670 m)
Normal Range: (normal fuel & max bombs), 1,100 miles (1,760 km)
@ 220 mph (352 km/h) @ 25,000 ft (7,625 m)
Powerplant:
Four 1,200 hp Wright R-1820-97 nine cylinder air-cooled single row radial engines. General Electric Type B-22 exhaust driven turbo-superchargers,
installed under engine nacelles.
Armament:
Thirteen 50-cal. machine-guns. Normal bomb load 6,000 lbs (2,724 kg).
Largest bomb type carried is 2,000 lb (908 kg).

It was also used by the Royal Air Force, though mainly roles other than those it had been designed for. The first B-17s — known to the RAF as "Fortress I"s — used by the Royal Air Force had been tragic disasters, and despite its overwhelming success in American hands, the British were reluctant to use the B-17 for its original mission profile of heavy bombing. They regarded the B-17 as uneconomical, due to its larger crew and relatively small bomb load. Instead, they used them for patrol bombing, and later equipped a number of them with sophisticated radio-countermeasures equipment, where they served in some of the first electronic countermeasures operations with RAF 100 Group.