A new B17 being restored?

[syscom3]

How many knew about this restoration?


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdUZOy49TdY

History of B-17E serial number: 41-2595

 

[Capt. Vick]

Good for them! I think I heard about these guys when the one landed in a field after an engine fire and burned to the ground. somehow the news crew followed up that story with a piece on these guys if I am remembering things correctly. Are they near each other?

 

[pattle]

So why were so many USAAF planes flown back to America at great risk and expense rather than being scrapped on site in which ever country they were in at wars end when it was clear they were no longer needed? I know many B26's were disposed of in Britain but from what I have heard B17's and B24's were mostly flown back across the Atlantic, I assume the fighters were scrapped in Britain rather than being shipped back?
To add a little to this I am aware that for some time after the end of the war in both the UK and USA aircraft were virtually going straight from the production lines to the scrap yards and that these planes were often sold on condition that they were scrapped and not put into civilian use due to fears of ex military planes flooding the market and killing off the civilian aircraft industry.
I have also heard stories of the USAAF burying their bomb stocks at airfields before abandoning them.

 

[javlin]

To add a little to this I am aware that for some time after the end of the war in both the UK and USA aircraft were virtually going straight from the production lines to the scrap yards and that these planes were often sold on condition that they were scrapped and not put into civilian use due to fears of ex military planes flooding the market and killing off the civilian aircraft industry.
I have also heard stories of the USAAF burying their bomb stocks at airfields before abandoning them.

My father was a radio operator on a B-17 and said something of that story with P-51s going for next to nothing but was that all part of the lore at the times

 

[Shortround6]

It is actually quite true, sometimes the planes went for less than the price of the fuel in the tanks. The problem was what did you do with it after the the first tank of fuel was used up?

few people could afford to buy the fuel for a fighter plane just to go joy riding. Surplus C-47s, C-46s killed the market for some post war airliners, even an AT-6 was going to burn a lot more fuel than a 4-5 seat cabin monoplane with a 200-300hp engine. Surplus trainers hurt the market for new light planes, not surplus fighters.

 

[gumbyk]

P-40's and P-51's were going for about 50 pounds here in NZ post war.

Apparently the Lockheed Hudson at the NZ Airforce Museum spent some of its life being used as a chicken coop, because it was cheaper for farmers to buy these aircraft than to build one!