The reason why all those pilots were crashing when their B-17s were easing into a landing was that the flaps and landing gear controls looked exactly the same. And it wasn’t until the end of the war that the Air Force finally resolved to figure out what had happened. A thought flickers across your mind about the gunners below and the other crew: "Whatever has happened to them now, it’s my fault." When your plane finally lurches to a halt, you wonder to yourself: "How on earth did my plane just crash when everything was going fine? What have I done?"įor all the triumph of America’s new planes and tanks during World War II, a silent reaper stalked the battlefield: accidental deaths and mysterious crashes that no amount of training ever seemed to fix. You’re rag-dolling around the cockpit while your plane skitters across the runway. Suddenly, you hear the scream of metal tearing into the tarmac. You reach down to deploy your landing gear. Say you’re easing in for another routine landing. But you have another enemy that you can’t see, and it strikes at the most baffling times. You know your primary enemy-the Germans and Japanese in your gunsights. Imagine being a pilot of that mighty plane. It was a symbol of American ingenuity, held aloft by four engines, bristling with a dozen machine guns. Its astounding toughness made pilots adore it: The B-17 could roar through angry squalls of shrapnel and bullets, emerging pockmarked but still airworthy. The B-17 Flying Fortress rolled off the drawing board and onto the runway in a mere 12 months, just in time to become the fearsome workhorse of the US Air Force during World War II.
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