The B17 Flying Fortress?

Question

Do you think it was the American version of the British Lancaster Bomber or not?

If it isn't like our Lancaster Bomber, how does our Bomber compare with it?

Answer 1

From one st;helens fan to another.
The Lancaster was the supreme heavy bomber of WW2!
It could carry the heaviest pay load of all. including the grand
slam earthquake bombs and tallboy! Equiped with 4 merlin
engines it roamed all over germany and carried the bouncing
bomb of the dam busters fame. Incidently, a 2 engined
mosqitoe carried a heavier bomb load than the B17.
Perhaps you would like to gander this website, write the
info down and view a bit at a time!
www.british aircraft.co.uk/ Happy viewing. Rule Britannia!

Answer 2

technically the Lancaster was indroduced later than the B-17, so there is NO WAY the the B-17 is a American version of the Lancaster. if anything the Lancaster is the British version of the B-17.
the Lancaster was introduced in 1942
the B-17 Flying Fotress was introduced in 1938

but they are not really versions of each other. the B-17 was a heavy light load all purpose bomber that used 4 engines
the Lancaster was a mid load bomber that used 2 engines

the B-17 was manned by 10 people, Lancaster by 7.

the Lancaster held more bombs, the B-17 holds less

the Lancaster turns and moves like a mid load bomber, the B-17 was heavy but literally a flying fortress because it was very steady and was able to bomb with more precision

the Lancaster dropped more bombs to hit its target. the B-17 was made to drop bombs in a more precise manner, only because it was a steady flyer. but when it came to defending itself, the Lancaster can get away better, whereas the B-17 has more guns on load (10 all around) to fight off the planes because the B-17 had trouble moving away fast enough

Answer 3

No the two are not really comparable.

The flying fortress was developed before the war as a 'heavy' bomber able to defend itself from fighters with multiple machine guns. There was so many machine guns and crew to man them that this negatively affected the weight of bombs that it carried.

The Lancaster was a development of the Manchester Bomber, and was the Backbone of bomber command. Although it did carry defensive armament, this was no where near the amount that the Flying fortress carried. It carried a much bigger bomb load that the flying fortress.

If the Lancaster was comparable to any American bomber it was the B24 Liberator, which was as common in the 8th air force as the B17. It had roughly the same armaments and crew as the Lancaster. Liberator crews contemptuously described B17 crews as flying 'medium' bombers.

The heaviest bomb load carried by a Lancaster was 20,000lb but generally they would carry 14,000lb

The heaviest bomb loads carried by a B17 and a B24 was 8,000lb, but generally they would carry less than this.

Answer 4

No Boeing build the B-17 in the 1930's the Lancaster was build in the early 1940's.
The B-17 was a Daylight Bombardment bomber.
The Lancaster was a Night Bombardment bomber.
Lancaster's carried more bombs then the B-17 and had less defensive armament then the B-17

They were from different generations of Bombers and Different philosophies. They complimented each other

Answer 5

Which one I would have prefered to be in & which one would be a better bomber are different Q's. The B-17 has a much better ceiling (though probably far closer if similar payloads are carried) & lots of heavier guns. But that doesn't make it a better bomber... The problem with the B-17 would appear to be the shape of the design of the bomb bays which severely restricts the payload & the type of payload, until the B-29 made it onto the scene no US bomber could carry super heavy munitions like Tallboys. The Lancaster & Halifax are pretty similar on paper with the Lancaster somewhat edging it on payload & range, both carrying 80% more 20-40% further than the B17. These are service loadous at which the planes could carry out useful range missions, max takeoff were far higher 16K lb for the B17 & 22Klb for the Lancaster (it could fly special missions at that load!) I'd guess the poor service ceiling of these craft owes as much to the focus on payload as it does to wing design & engine design. The day/night issue is a bit of a red herring. The Lancaster carried out highly accurate daylight attacks (Tirpitz, Uboat pens etc) & the B-17, .50cal hedgehog though it was, was still breakfast for competant fighter pilots. The basics are that the Lancaster could carry more, in more configurations & could take that payload further, regardless of whether you want a truckload of incenduaries on a row of terraces or an earthquake bomb under a viaduct that's what you want.

Answer 6

Here are the facts on both bombers.
The Lancaster could carry more than twice the bomb payload but the B-17 had a much farther range.

The first B-17s saw combat in 1941, when the British Royal Air Force took delivery of several B-17s for high-altitude missions. As World War II intensified, the bombers needed additional armament and armor.

The B-17E, the first mass-produced model Flying Fortress, carried nine machine guns and a 4,000-pound bomb load. It was several tons heavier than the prototypes and bristled with armament. It was the first Boeing airplane with the distinctive -- and enormous -- tail for improved control and stability during high-altitude bombing. Each version was more heavily armed.

In the Pacific, the planes earned a deadly reputation with the Japanese, who dubbed them "four-engine fighters." The Fortresses were also legendary for their ability to stay in the air after taking brutal poundings. They sometimes limped back to their bases with large chunks of the fuselage shot off.

Boeing plants built a total of 6,981 B-17s in various models, and another 5,745 were built under a nationwide collaborative effort by Douglas and Lockheed (Vega). Only a few B-17s survive today; most were scrapped at the end of the war. Some of the last Flying Fortresses met their end as target drones in the 1960s -- destroyed by Boeing Bomarc missiles.

B-17G Specifications First flight: July 28, 1935 (prototype)
Model number: 299
Classification: Bomber
Span: 103 feet 9 inches
Length: 74 feet 9 inches
Gross weight: 65,000 pounds
Top speed: 287 mph
Cruising speed: 150 mph
Range (max.): 3,750 miles
Ceiling: 35,600 feet
Power: Four 1,200-horsepower Wright R-1820-97 engines
Accommodation: 2 pilots, bombardier, radio-operator, 5 gunners
Armament: 11 to 13 machine guns, 9,600-pound bomb load

In September 1936 the Air Ministry published specifications calling for a twin-engine bomber to be powered by Rolls Royce engines. A. V. Roe & Company took up the challenge and developed the Avro Manchester. The company built 200 but it was not a success.

In 1940 the aircraft was redesigned. The new aircraft, called the Avro Lancaster Mk I, made its first flight on 9th January, 1941. Powered by four Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, it had a maximum speed of 287 mph (462 km) and had a range of 1,660 miles (2,670 km). Armed with ten machine-guns it could carry 22,000 lb (9,980 kg) of bombs. It was 69 ft 6 in (21.18 m) long with a wingspan of 102 ft (31.09 m).

The Lancaster soon became Britain's most successful strategic bomber of the Second World War. The demand was so great that A. V. Roe & Company could not cope and Austin Motors, Vickers-Armstrong and Armstrong-Whitworth also began producing the plane. Over the next five years a total of 7,377 aircraft were built.

In 1943 A. V. Roe & Company introduced the Avro Lancaster Mk II. The new aircraft, with its Bristol Hercules engine, was slower than the original version, but importantly now had a range of 2,250 miles (3,620 km). The company also built the Lancaster Mk IB Special that had modified bomb-bays that enabled it to carry 10 ton bombs such as the Grand Slam.

During the war Lancasters carried out a total of 156,000 missions and dropped 608,612 tons of bombs. This was double what the Handley Page Halifax, the other major bomber used by the Royal Air Force achieved. In the four years of combat service 3,249 Lancasters were lost in action and another 487 were destroyed or damaged while on the ground. Only 24 Lancasters completed more than 100 successful missions.

Answer 7

EAch country had there own version of a bomber we the British thought speed was the most important the Americans went for defence , each had its strengths and weaknesses , The english moquito was very fast and hard to catch but it was also very lightly built of wood once a fighter had got in range of it . It had little defence , The b17 was armed to the teeth with underbelly twin machine guns, rear twin machine guns backed up by a swivel middle turret as well a tripple front guns , they also flew in a defensive patten the theory being that they were, unaprochable from any angle, there weakness was they were very slow and cumbersome and the mechersmitts used to fire from a distance and being they were packed together they always hit something
and once the defensive patten was broken they could pick of the rest , but the Americans made them pay in blood for it

Answer 8

Thw Lancaster was the Mother of all Bomber's.

Answer 9

It was the "equivalent" of the Lancaster in general terms, both design and use, but not a version in the sense of being "copied".

Answer 10

Yes it is and it was copied by them