The B-17G owned and operated by the Mid America Flight Museum, 44-85718 (N900RW), better known as Thunderbird, remains under heavy maintenance at the Erickson Aircraft Collection at Madras, Oregon. We were able to get an very recent update from the Mid America Flight Museum on the current status and future plans for the B-17.
Thunderbird was long operated by the Lone Star Flight Museum and based at Houston, Texas. In December 2020, Mid America Air Museum founder and president Scott Glover was able to purchase the aircraft for the collection based at Mt. Pleasant, Texas.
Shortly after the purchase, Thunderbird was delivered to the Erickson crew at Madras to undergo heavy maintenance, a process that continues into 2022. Photos taken last October by Chris Brame show the ongoing status of the work on the B-17G.
Among the work underway is a wing attach inspection required by the 2001 FAA Airworthiness Directive to ensure the condition of bolts, terminal wing fittings, and spar tubes in the wing spar attach point for the forward and rear spars of both wings. Also, the control surfaces have been removed for recovering. Other aircraft systems are getting a thorough review with an ‘inspect and repair as needed’ approach. The work is being done by a crew from the Erickson Aircraft Collection, who are familiar with the B-17 maintenance requirements based on their experience with the Erickson B-17G, 44-8543 (N3701G), otherwise known as Ye Olde Pub. No completion date for the work on Thunderbird has been established; it is done when it is done.
Future plans for Thunderbird? There is no intent to have it participate in an FAA Living History Flight Experience program…i.e. the Mid America Flight Museum will not be selling rides or touring with the B-17. It will be based at the Mt. Pleasant museum facility along with the rest of the aircraft collection.
The airplane may gain a new paint scheme in the future and, presumably, gain a new name and nose art. It has carried the Thunderbird name and scheme since 1987 when Lone Star Flight Museum founder Robert Waltrip had the airplane refinished to replicate the actual Thunderbird, B-17G 42-38050, that flew with the 303rd Bomb Group from England during World War II.
This B-17G, 44-85718, was delivered by Lockheed on May 8, 1945, just as the European war was ending, and sent directly to storage. It was sold to the French Institut Geographique National (IGN) from a surplus yard at Altus, Oklahoma, (along with three other new B-17Gs) in late 1947, becoming F-BEEC in French civil service. It and, eventually, 13 other IGN B-17s spent the next four decades as survey aircraft on world-ranging missions. F-BEEC was finally retired in 1984 and went to the Lone Star Flight Museum in 1987. The last external vestiges of its French survey modifications are windows installed in the lower nose section just aft of the plexiglass nose, and the plexiglass nose piece itself. There are no plans by Mid America Flight Museum to return the nose section to the standard B-17G configuration, so the indicator of the prior use of the airplane will remain intact. The book FInal Cut: The Post-War B-17 Flying Fortress and Survivors has a lengthy section with text and photos on the history of this specific aircraft.