vegaaircraft

My father knew someone who was aircrew on the XB-38. The story he told me was that the AAF provided the B-17 to Lockheed as a test bed for installing Allison V-1710 engines on the B-17. The hope was that the Allison engines would give the B-17 better high altitude performance than the Wright R-1820 engines. The V-1710 engines were the same as those used on the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. During a test flight the crankshaft in one of the engines seized and the engine caught fire. The crew abandoned the aircraft. The crew was made up of a mixture of Lockheed employees and AAF crewmen. The AAF crew was equipped with new nylon parachutes whereas the Lockheed crew had older silk parachutes. The silk parachutes all failed on opening and the entire Lockheed crew died. The AAF crew survived. The program was never continued because it was decided the V-1710 engines were more badly needed on P-38 Lightnings.

The XB-38 (B-17E converted to V-1710s) flew in 1943-- lost after an engine fire less than a month later. Only one conversion, by Vega.

Alan Is it possible to read the USAAF serial number seen under the two small windows on this B-17G? Stig

This Boeing B-17G appears to be the same aircraft (B-17G-60-VE, USAAF Ser. No. 44-8331):

TVL1970 Yes that sounds logic Stig