Bomber Camp

There are few airplanes as emblematic as the Flying Fortress. Its majestic form, prickling with 13 guns, symbolizes the American industry and a fast, successful response to world events. While the Fortress is an impressive and glorious aircraft to behold, more importantly, it reminds us of its 10-man crews who fought (and often died) more than 4 miles above the earth. 

They battled German Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs, anti-aircraft artillery (flak), aircraft malfunctions, and frigid temperatures—flying in formations of hundreds while navigating through bad weather to their targets deep in enemy territory. Today, the B-17 serves as both a symbol and memorial of effort, bravery, and the price of freedom. 

To be able to fly such a machine today is a rare privilege. But to be able to drop bombs, operate the ball turret, and shoot the guns 80 years after World War II is not something that most would fathom as possible. However, Bomber Camp, an annual event in Stockton, California, makes this surreal experience possible. A lifelong dream, Taigh Ramey
created Bomber Camp in 2008, after years spent in research and collecting bomber equipment, guns and artifacts. 

Needless to say, Bomber Camp could not be a reality without a bomber. In recent years, the Erickson Aircraft Collection’s B-17, Ye Olde Pub, has been flown down to Stockton from Madras, Oregon, several days ahead of the event so it can be configured back to true bomber status in preparation for the arrival of guest bomber “crews.” A team of experts and enthusiasts installs working guns, bomb wiring harnesses, solenoids, electromechanical actuators, bomb shackles, and the once top-secret Norden bombsight. All the support equipment and vehicles used in this endeavor are genuine WWII machines, including a 1942 Ford staff car, a Cletrac M-2 tractor tug, and a Cushman trike. 

The instructors include reenactors dressed in period-correct U.S. Army Air Corps uniforms. Most of them sleep on WWII Army cots in a hangar. When the aircrew “students” arrive, they are immediately required to change into WWII green coveralls and khaki covers (hats). They attend classes in a hangar surrounded by WWII aircraft equipment, training devices, and publications. 

There is even an administration office with a clerk tapping away on an old-fashioned typewriter. Classes include bombing theory, navigation, armament, air-to-air defensive gunnery, and operation of the Norden bombsight. At lunchtime, chow is ladled onto your tray by the mess sergeant, who tells you to “eat it with a smile.” It’s actually pretty good. 

After lunch, students get hands-on practice using the bombsight, loading and employing guns, and operating a ball turret mounted on a stand. It is truly an immersive experience. When training is complete, the students are assigned to their flight crews and given safety briefs before loading aboard Ye Olde Pub. 

Warbird pilots Mike Oliver and Doug Griffin start the engines after first pre-oiling and priming each engine, setting the mixtures to idle-cutoff and the magnetos off. One engine at a time, the electric starters are engaged until they are at maximum rpm. Then the mesh switch is used to engage the starter gears, spinning the prop. After nine blades are counted, the magneto is turned to “hot.” As the cylinders begin to fire, the copilot “tickles” the electric primer switch to keep the engine alive with fuel. With the first engine firing regularly, the mixture is placed to auto-rich. Only three more to go. 

Everyone at Bomber Camp had the great opportunity to meet a 100-year-old  WWII B-17 pilot. Former U.S. Army Air Corps First Lieutenant Martin Agegian served in the 18th Squadron, 34th Heavy Bombardment Group, Eighth Air Force in Mendlesham, England, from 1944-45. A few of us had the opportunity to hear him tell story after story about his harrowing missions deep over enemy territory in the Flying Dutchman, as his bomber was named. 

While waiting in the waist gun section of a B-17 for the weather to clear, with the soft patter of rain on the fuselage, he told us that, despite the dangers and close calls, not a single Dutchman crewmember received even a scratch during 15 combat missions. 

The same could not be said of his sheepskin-lined pants, which were ripped open when a piece of shrapnel came straight through the bomber’s floorboard. On another occasion flak passed within inches of both his and his copilot’s nose. The shrapnel was so hot that it scorched and melted the plexiglass side windows when it passed through. He also told of the time when another B-17 received a direct hit and exploded right above his bomber. The concussion was so fierce, it wrenched the yoke out of his hands and caused his bomber to violently roll. Fortunately, he was able to right his machine and complete the mission. 

Agegian specifically recounted May 8, 1945—V-E Day (victory in Europe). While obviously a great day of revelry throughout England and Europe, his commanding officer required everyone to remain on base and attend church services and memorials for their fallen brothers. He agreed it was the right thing to do, and nobody resented the order. It was certainly a special honor and a sobering experience to meet one of the few remaining Eighth Air Force airmen from the Greatest Generation of those who unhesitatingly put everything on the line for the cause of freedom. Not long after this privileged meeting Agegian went West. RIP, and thank you, sir.

Bomber Camp allows you to get intimate with the machine we all know as the B-17, providing background that is  helpful to fully understand what you’re working with. 

The Boeing Model 299 first flew in 1935 and was powered by four Pratt & Whitney supercharged, 9-cylinder engines rated at 750 hp each. It was designed to compete for the U.S. Army Air Corps’ need for a new long-range bomber. The Model 299 exceeded its requirements. It could carry a 2,500-pound bomb load over 2,000 miles at more than 200 mph. At that time, it was the largest landplane ever built. With only five .30-caliber Browning machine guns, this prototype wasn’t nearly as “prickly” as the eventual wartime production Flying Fortress, but it had enough guns that a Seattle Times newspaper reporter described it as looking like a “flying fortress.” Boeing quickly adopted the fitting name for what has become a legend. 

The nose turret was mounted on top of the glass nose, and the waist guns were mounted in swiveling and pivoting side blisters, similar to a PBY Catalina, which also had its first flight in 1935. Sadly, only three months after the first flight of the Model 299, it crashed after takeoff due to the crew forgetting to disengage the control lock. Interestingly, as a result of this preventable oversight came the inception of the now standard “checklist” for all aircraft types. 

While the crash of the Model 299 caused Boeing to lose the competition (to the Douglas B-18 Bolo), the Air Corps leadership saw the strategic usefulness in the design and procured funds to purchase 12 aircraft. They were designated YB-17s (the original 299 was retroactively redesignated XB-17, even after it had been destroyed). Eventually becoming operational, the Y was dropped and the B-17 went through numerous (and extensive) modifications with accompanying series designations, culminating in the B-17H model. By the end of the war, a whopping 12,731 had been built by Boeing and, under contract, by Douglas and Lockheed Vega. 

By the time the B-17 was in serial production, power had increased substantially from the Model 299 prototype. Each wing now carried two turbo-supercharged Wright R-1820-97 9-cylinder engines, producing 1,200 hp each. Power is turned into thrust by three-bladed Hamilton Standard constant speed, full-feathering propellers. 

The R-1820 was one of the most widely used engines of the era. To meet production requirements, it was built under license by Pratt & Whitney Canada, Lycoming, Studebaker, Hispano-Suiza, and in the Soviet Union as the M-25. The turbo-supercharged engines allow the B-17 to fly at high altitudes, where it could better mitigate the threats of flak and enemy fighters. Of course, the high operating altitudes meant temperatures down to minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit, and the B-17 was neither pressurized nor heated. Flight crewmembers wore heated suits, and oxygen masks were necessary at high altitudes. When these systems failed, they had to deal with hypoxia and frostbite. 

Six tanks provide 1,700 gallons of fuel. “Toyko tanks” in the outboard portions of the wings have nine baffled cells each, providing an additional 540 gallons and enabling bombing missions to reach eastern Germany. For ferry flights, two 410-gallon tanks could be installed in the bomb bay, giving the bomber a 3,400-mile range. For normal (noncombat) cruise, the B-17 burns approximately 200 gallons of fuel per hour and 10 gallons of oil per hour. 

Obviously, the purpose of a bomber is to drop bombs. The bomb bay has four bomb rails (two inboard and two outboard) that can carry up to 8,000 pounds of bombs internally. The inboard bomb rails form a “V.” A narrow catwalk passes between the V, allowing crewmembers to pass between the cockpit and radio room as they hold onto a woven rope to keep from slipping into the bomb bay and possibly out of the aircraft (if the doors are open). 

A bomber is only as effective as its bombardier—an expert in bombs, fuses, and weaponeering. A bombardier must have intimate knowledge of the plane’s electrical system, bomb bay doors, intervalometer, and autopilot. Incorrect loading and fuzing could cause bomb-to-bomb collision immediately upon release, leading to the loss of the entire crew in a flash. 

The “secret weapon” of a bombardier’s tool kit was the Norden bombsight—a gyro-stabilized, mechanical, analog computer with downward-aimed optics. Once the pilot successfully reached the IP (initial point), control of the airplane was turned over to the bombardier, who coupled the aircraft to the C1 autopilot. 

The bombardier was the tip of the spear. He sat hunched over on a tiny stool, his eye to the eyepiece and fingers busily adjusting an assortment of leveling knobs, caging knobs, drift knobs, and sighting optics until flicking the bomb release switch when the DPI (desired point of impact) was in the crosshairs. From IP until “bombs away,” the bombardier was in charge of the airplane. 

For a bomber to be effective, it must survive long enough to make it to the target area. Ideally, both the plane and crew also make it home to fight another day. Besides the threats of flak, poor weather, and engine malfunctions, there were the ruthless enemy fighters. Heavy bombers are big, lumbering giants that were vulnerable to such fast and high-flying German fighters as the Messerschmidt Bf-109 and Focke-Wulf 190. The aptly named Flying Fortress sought to even the odds, bristling with up to 13 guns (B-17G), all of which were Browning M2 .50-caliber weapons with a firing rate of 13 rounds per second. 

The guns from nose to tail were as follows: The electrically powered and hydraulically actuated Bendix chin turret (B-17G only) was operated by the bombardier when he wasn’t head down in the Norden bombsight. The left cheek gun was operated by the bombardier (primary) but could be operated by either nose compartment crewman. The navigator could operate the right cheek gun (primary) or left cheek gun (secondary), if the bombardier wasn’t operating it. 

The flight engineer operated the Sperry top turret (twin .50s) in the aft section of the cockpit, while the radio operator protected the aircraft from the 6-o’clock-high position with the top aft-facing gun. The belly gunner operated the Sperry ball turret (twin .50s) under the fuselage, immediately aft of the radio room in a position that feels completely exposed. 

Next comes the right-side waist gunner, followed by the left-side waist gunner. Some B-17F and all G models staggered the right- and left-side waist gun windows to give the gunners maneuvering room inside the fuselage. The tail gunner manned twin .50s, watching, protecting and fighting alone, 25 feet away from the closest crewmember. 

Employing the B-17 was a life-or-death team effort. The crews trained and stayed together to the maximum extent possible during their tours. The bomber teams extended beyond the aircrews; the maintenance crews worked tirelessly all night long to repair, service, and load their “Forts” for the next mission. Once the bombers were airborne, they would grab a few hours of sleep and anxiously wait (and pray) for their bomber’s safe return. Once back, the cycle would start all over again as they cleaned out all the spent .50 caliber brass casings and, too often, wiped up the blood of their friends from the aluminum floors. It was a lot to ask of young men, most still in their teens, but they did it time and time again. 

As one would expect, the B-17 is a heavy flying machine and takes physical effort to pilot. Flying for merely a few hours in light to moderate turbulence made me appreciate the pilots that wrestled these machines for more than eight hours while keeping their assigned position in formation. 

On descent, manifold pressures are reduced about 2 inches every two minutes. Arrive in the landing pattern at about 21 inches of manifold pressure and 1,900 rpm. Without landing gear doors, there is no maximum gear extension speed, but pilots usually lower the gear at the same speed as the flap extension (147 mph). With mixtures rich (levers aft, not forward), boost pumps on, three down and locked indications, and flaps set to one-third, the pilot begins the descent from pattern altitude. Turning base, the flaps will be lowered to the two-thirds position. 

Turn to arrive on a stabilized half-mile final at about 105-110 mph, and the propellers can be pushed into fine pitch to be prepared for a go-around. Flare the Fortress while pulling the power levers until in a three-point attitude. 

This husky machine is in a constant state of making small corrections, which equates to what seem like large inputs. After slowing to taxi speed, unlock the tailwheel to taxi. Besides the sheer size and mass of the heavy airplane, it is an honest and relatively easy taildragger to land. 

The Flying Fortress is an important part of the history of the free world. It served for the entirety of  WWII as a power-projection platform. Even though the Fortresses’ crews suffered staggering losses, they were (and shall ever be) held in high regard. Of all the heavy  WWII bombers, the Fortress could take the most hits and still limp home. For this, their crews and maintainers loved them. 

The Erickson Aircraft Collection of Madras, Oregon, has played an important part in preserving the history of Ye Olde Pub and many other warbirds. While it is one thing to see these aircraft in museums, it is a whole other experience to hear and see these artifacts come to life. The spinning props, majestic radial rumble, and combined smells of oil, gasoline, and hydraulic fluid bring history to life through our senses, creating indelible memories. Bomber Camp takes this one level further: It provides a deeper appreciation and comprehension of what it was like for crewmembers to take to the air, drop bombs, and operate the guns of a real B-17 Flying Fortress.