B-17 Radar or Night Bombers

[cclark8871]

Recently I had seen a episode of 12 oclock High called The Albotross. On the show a picture of a B-17 viewed in the first few minutes of the show with what looked like a Night fighter version of radar used simular on the p-61 Black widow or navy fighters. It was located under the nose bottom just under the copilots side off center. Cant find much info on this mod of the B-17. Anyone know of this , what was it and how was it used?

 

[wuzak]

H2X?

That is the American version of the British H2S system. It was sometimes referred to as Bombing Through Overcast.

 

[cclark8871]

Thanks. Ive read a lot on the B-17 (even thou B-24s are my favorate) and had not actually seen a picture of it.

 

[Airframes]

The H2X was normally mounted in place of the ball turret. If the one you have seen had a 'radar dome' in the chin turret position, this might have been stock footage, possibly showing a SAR aircraft's search radar, or, an even more rare bird, one of the ECM aircraft.

 

[parsifal]

The first development of B-17's with radar were conversions of seven B-17F models in which a British developed H2S (Stinkey) radar or "Oboe" Mark I were installed.
On these ships, the radar antenne was mounted under the nose of the plane and covered by an aerodynamic housing.

Later planes were equipped with the American (AN/APS-15/) H2X "Mickey" system which was a further development of the British H2S "Stinky" airborne radar. Development took place by scientists of the MIT Radiation Laboratory. On the first 12 aircraft it was hand crafted into the nose of the aircraft behind the chin turret in a rather crude way.
The ships modified with this initial version of the H2X were following [1]:


42-3483 MI-A
42-3484 MI-B
42-3485 MI-C
42-3486 MI-D "Invictus", MIA 11.01.44 into IJsselmeer/Zuiderzee, The Netherlands
42-3487 MI-E
42-3490 MI-F, MIA 21.06.44
42-3491 MI-G, MIA 06.03.44 above Berlin
42-3492 MI-H
42-3500 MI-J, MIA 04.02.44 near Zwolle, The Netherlands
42-3511 MI-K, MIA 25.04.44 near Precy-sur-Oise, Normandy, France
42-30280 MI-L, "crazy horse", MIA 21.02.44, into IJsselmeer/Zuiderzee, The Netherlands
42-37745 MI-M

Note, one of them was an F version, the rest were "F" versions, modified and re-designated "G" versions, or built as a "G" version.

After the initial batch of 12 H2X modified airplanes, subsequent radar modified B-17's were built with the radar dome mounted semi retractable as replacement of the ball turret.