Rare B-17 aircraft visits Allegheny County Airport
Visitors will have an opportunity for a firsthand look at the Madras Maiden at Allegheny County Airport.
Pilot John Shuttleworth speaks about the Madras Maiden.
The Madras Maiden has been fully restored and is ready to fly.
The Madras Maiden flies over Allegheny County.
B-17G 44-8543 was built by Lockheed-Vega and accepted by the U.S. Army Air Forces in on Oct. 17, 1944.
The B-17 was modified to be a “Pathfinder”aircraft. Of the planes that were converted in that manner, N3701G is the only one now in existence.
The B-17 spent its entire military career, from 1944-59, as a research and development aircraft.
The aircraft was purchased through sealed bid by the American Compressed Steel Corp. of Cincinnati on Aug. 18, 1959, for $5,026.
On Feb. 6, 1961, the aircraft was sold to Albany Building Corp of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and was used as a cargo transport, hauling fresh produce between southern Florida and the Caribbean.
Dr. William Hospers of Fort Worth, Texas, bought the B-17 in 1979. his team of volunteers spent years slowly restoring the aircraft.
In 2013, N3701G was sold to the Erickson Collection, an aviation museum in Madras, Ore., and restored to combat configuration.
The aircraft is listed as N3701G on the U.S. Civil Register.
The Madras Maiden’s tail gun turret
A machine gunner’s view
Representation of a bomb inside the aircraft
Co-pilot James Hammons inside the cockpit during flight
View toward the plane’s tail
Pilot John Shuttleworth speaks about the Madras Maiden.
View of Oakland from the Madras Maiden
WEST MIFFLIN – Nearly 13,000 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress aircrafts were built for World War II. Almost 5,000 of those were lost in combat.
Fewer than 50 remain today, and only a dozen are still airworthy.
This weekend, one of the rare B-17’s still flying above will be open to the public.
Through a country-wide tour by the Liberty Foundation, a nonprofit organization from Oklahoma, public flights and ground tours of the B-17G, nicknamed “Madras Maiden,” will be available August 5-6 at the Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin.
The flights, which cost $450, will be held between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., while the ground tours will follow and last until 5:30 p.m. both days.
“We’re happy for the Liberty Foundation to be here this weekend in Allegheny County, so we can show the local area and the people here how much we want to celebrate the WWII veterans and especially the 8th Air Force veterans who operated this aircraft,” said co-pilot James Hammons.
Prior to a flight for members of the media July 31, pilot John Shuttleworth, along with Hammons, explained the significance of “Madras Maiden,” which began its first tour in March.
Originally built in 1944 to be a long-range bomber, the plane never went into combat and was used mostly as a research and development aircraft. The plane had a 15-year career in the military, most notably as a pathfinder radar aircraft.
“Madras Maiden” is the only pathfinder B-17 left in existence.
In its civilian life, the plane bounced around the United States. Starting in Ohio, it was sold to a cargo transport company in Florida in 1961. It then was sold to a company in Alabama and converted to a Fire Ant Sprayer before being sold to a company in Virginia, which restored the aircraft and began flying it in airshows.
Finally, Erickson Collection, an aviation museum in Madras, Ore., bought the B-17 in 2013. They named the aircraft “Madras Maiden,” and painted it a custom nose-art as well as colors to match those of the 381st Bomb Group, which flew nearly 300 missions and dropped 22,000 tons of bombs during WWII.
“The airplane itself is a wonderful design,” Hammons said.
While “Madras Maiden” wasn’t used in combat, thousands of B-17’s were. While the majority were used during WWII, they also flew in the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
“When these airplanes would go on a mission, there would be hundreds of these airplanes … up to 900 sometimes, with 10 men on each one,” Hammons said. “Early in the war, they had 40, 50, 60 percent losses. Sometimes they would start a mission and there would be five or six thousand people fewer people returning that left that morning.”
During the flight experience, passengers can walk around “Madras Maiden” and witness the historic aircraft firsthand in action. Navigating the different compartments of the B-17, passengers are able to see several unique aspects of the B-17, including the Bendix turret – a small area underneath the cockpit where a gunner would operate two machine guns.
The flight experience will be between 30-45 minutes, and Hammons said the flight fee of $450 is needed for the upkeep costs of the aircraft. “Madras Maiden” costs $5,000 per flight hour, and the Liberty Foundation, spends approximately $1.5 million a year to keep “Madras Maiden” airworthy.
Hammons said co-piloting the B-17 gives him some insight into the sacrifices made by thousands of Americans in WWII, something that is dwindling with time, as very few WWII veterans remain.
“We fly it around as an airworthy movable museum to honor these men and women that fought the war WWII, and we’re losing them every day,” Hammons said. “It’s magnificent to see these men and their families to see how much they remember. To see how much they still celebrate what they did. To honor the memory of the people they knew who didn’t come back.”