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Ammo Boxes in 3D
Regular followers will know that I have been itching to build Lucky Thirteen‘s eight wooden ammunition boxes for quite some time. Well, we have made some progress on that. Our friend Bob Hachmann has offered to look into fabricating the metal bits that go on these boxes. This is particularly helpful as all contain a […]
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ALCLAD Stamps
Back in November we started a campaign to raise the money to recreate the red markings typically seen on bare aluminum in WWII. Then, as does today, aluminum arrived from the manufacturer stamped with markings which indicated the composition of each sheet. Since the Boeing B-17’s interior was unpainted, these red markings were VERY visible. […]
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Recent Donations
I realize it has been a while since my last post, but with the virus keeping everyone under quarantine, I hope our followers can forgive me for being a little tardy. There have been plenty of Facebook updates throughout this period, but these have all been rather small and probably not big enough to […]
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L13’s Bombbay and Other Updates
Since completing the bomb bay for Liberty Belle (44-85734) back in November, we have been free to permanently reassemble the bomb bay for Lucky Thirteen, which had been used as a pattern. This means that the next step will be the lower half of Stations 4 and 5 – the area which entails the bomb […]
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Odds & Ends
The biggest news since our last update was that we finished the bomb bay for Liberty Belle (44-85734), delivering it to Douglas, Georgia in early November. As you may recall, Liberty Belle (of the Liberty Foundation) caught fire over Illinois back in 2011. While her forward half is being restored in Georgia, we are […]
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Cheyenne Mod. Center
Whenever you see a general history of the air war over Europe, it generally criticizes the US Army Air Forces for failing to develop a long-range escort fighter earlier than they eventually did. While it is true that it took some years for Allied aircraft designers to find a solution to the issue, what is […]
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B-17 Oddballs
It has now been two weeks since the tragic loss of B-17G 44-83575, better known as the Collings Foundation’s Nine O’ Nine. A testament to the pitiful regard in which we American citizens hold our government and legal system, the first reaction from those in the warbird community (once the shock had worn away) was: […]
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Odds & Ends
Many of our followers are not on Facebook and I would hate to deprive them of an opportunity to see these additions. So here is a post detailing some of the smaller odds and ends we finished in the past couple months. Many of the pieces below are from our Auxiliary and Radio Parts Drives. We […]
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A Visit to Fred Bieser
Those of you who follow our Facebook page have probably seen us talk about Fred Bieser. Fred is a turret restoration specialist from Lithonia, Georgia and we reached out to him to help us prepare for the long-term goal of acquiring and restoring Lucky Thirteen‘s turrets. Turrets are incredibly rare and expensive and, to be […]
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Interior Paint Colors
Before I begin, I would like to tell a story… Years ago, I joined a group overseeing a North American B-25 which had been pulled from a South Carolina lake in the early-1980s. She had been lost during the war in a training exercise. The aircraft was in very poor shape and had gone through […]
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