Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress
The chin-turret Fortress — thirteen guns and by far the most-built version · First flight 1943 · In service 1943
The B-17G, first flown on 16 August 1943, combined all the changes made during F production with the Bendix chin turret, two remotely controlled 12.7 mm guns under the nose to counter head-on fighter attacks. With the cheek guns, staggered waist windows that gave the gunners more room, and on late blocks the improved 'Cheyenne' tail turret with a reflector sight, it carried thirteen machine guns.
Boeing, Douglas and Lockheed-Vega built 8,680 B-17Gs — more than two-thirds of the 12,731 Fortresses produced — with the last completed by Lockheed on 28 July 1945. The G equipped the 8th and 15th Air Force bomb groups through the 1944–45 campaign against German oil and transport targets; Royal Air Force Fortress IIIs flew with Coastal Command and Bomber Command's radio-countermeasures squadrons.
After the war B-17Gs served as search-and-rescue, drone and survey aircraft and with air forces including those of Israel, Brazil, Portugal and Denmark. Most surviving Fortresses are B-17Gs, including 'Sentimental Journey' of the Commemorative Air Force and the UK's 'Sally B'. 'Texas Raiders', a Douglas-built B-17G-95-DL, was destroyed in a mid-air collision at the Wings Over Dallas air show on 12 November 2022.
