WAYNE,
     In a message dated 01-15-98 you wrote ...
> | Jack was discussing "POSTCARD" with All. |
>
> JS| B-17...
> JS| The B-17 was slow, cumbersome, unpressurized, unheated, and very
> JS| drafty.
>
> JS| That being said, for its purpose nobody else at the time had
> JS| anything better!
>
> In a lot of ways, it was the B-2 bomber of the late 1930s.  It was
> the most expensive combat aircraft ever constructed up to that time.
> It was state-of-the-art in every respect...
>
> The government in its traditional short-sightedness almost killed
> the contract with Boeing.  If they'd have done that, the history of
> WWII would have been VERY different than we know it...
>
> The Boeing B-17 bomber was without a doubt the single most important
> weapon of WWII...
   How much time have either of you in B-17s. I have a bit
 over 700 hours in it and 31 combat missions over Europe...
 The most rugged aircraft of WW II... More B-24s were built
 but the B-17 could take more punishment and still fly...
      You can thank General Frank Andrews of Nashville. TN
 for keeping the airplane going.. The pilot FORGOT to remove
 the control locks and crashed the prototype at take-off
 from Wright-Patterson which almost caused it to be cancelled.
      Had Gen. Andrews lived (he was killed in a B-24 crash)
 you would probablly have never heard much from Eisenhower
 again. Andrews had been selected and assigned as Supreme
 Commander in Europe... Eisenhower was put back in 9 months
 after Andrews was killed... The only historical mark for
 Andrews was the naming of the Virginia base for him.. He was
 a competent general when Eisenhower was an "overage-in-grade"
 major...
>
>                               \x/7
>
> .45 ACP:  ONE-HUNDRED years of successful practical testing!
> ... The Consolidated B-24 Liberator Bomber.  The crate the B-17 came in.
> ---
>  * | NRA Life Member, 1972 | *
   -=*  Jim Sanders  *=-
===
 * MsgView V1.13 [R028] * We have met the enemy and he is us! Pogo
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