INLAND EMPIRE AVIATION ROUNDTABLE This Thursday Nov. 14th at 7pm The B-17 Flying Fortress Presented by: Ken Wright, RAF (Retired) Ken Wright enlisted in the British Royal Air Force on his 18th birthday, December 8, 1941. He was trained as a Navigator and Bombardier in Canada, and then served in RAF Heavy Bombers during World War II. After the war, he took part in the Berlin Airlift, and then switched to Night Fighters. He took part in a Nuclear Bomb test when flying on exchange duty with the USMC at El Toro, and various missile-related assignments in the United States and the United Kingdom, before his retirement after 20 years of military service. The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress was a four-engine heavy bomber aircraft developed in the 1930s. The B-17 was primarily employed by the United States Army Air Forces in the daylight precision strategic bombing campaign of World War II against German industrial and military targets. The first bombing missions of the B-17s over Germany were crewed by the Royal Air Force before America entered the war. The development and tactics were a combined effort of a government arrangement between our two countries. The B-17 also participated to a lesser extent in the War in the Pacific, early in World War II, where it conducted raids against Japanese shipping and airfields. A total of over 12 thousand B-17s were built. There is a recently restored B-17G on display at the March Field Air Museum. The program starts at 7 p.m. and is free to the public.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 22:43:33 +0000
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