5 Grand

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Niner
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5 Grand

Post by Niner » Mon Jun 11, 2012 11:54 am

There was this B-17 made during WWII by Boeing. It happened to be number 5000 off the assembly line and all the employees of the plant....that wanted to I guess... signed it. It flew missions over Europe with signatures in place. One place I read about it says in crossing the Atlantic going to Europe it flew about seven miles an hour slower than other conventionally painted planes because of the extra ink, paint and some rougher surfaces from the decorations.

After the war the city where it was built thought about wanting it as a monument to the people working at the local Boeing plants war effort. However, it would have cost them some money in upkeep so the plane went to the scrap yard. Of course Boeing wasn't interested in helping out with the expense I'd imagine. Why should they? Nobody ever saw a monument to a widget. Probably that's all Boeing thought it was....one more unit off the assembly line.

I lifted a photo from this site. Lots more photos there.

http://fivegrand.freehomepage.com/
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