B-17 Flying Fortress / 379 Bomb Group General and Business Aviation Whitney R-1340-AN-1 radial piston engine

Whitney R-1340-AN-1 radial piston engine

The aircraft had ejectable nose capsules instead of ejection seats because the development of ejection seats had not reached maturity at the time the X-2 was conceived

and it often was used at lower altitudes for such missions as ground strafing

and finally Gulfstream American

maximizing efficiency with no superfluous space

B-17 Flying Fortress / 379 Bomb Group General and Business Aviation Whitney R-1340-AN-1 radial piston engineThe B 17G was the result of an almost continuous improvement program of earlier B 17 models. The G model was basically the production version of the B 17F after the modifications and improvements were incorporated into the design. Although the Bendix chin turret is the most obvious improvement incorporated into the B 17G, it was actually first used on late model B 17Fs. More than 8,500 Gs were built by three different manufacturers: Boeing, Douglas,