Fortress at Blackbushe by County1006 on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

44-85718 was a Lockheed-Vega-built B-17G-105-VE Flying Fortress. Post-War, she was delivered to the Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Centre (SNCAC) at Villacoublay, France, where she received an overhaul and was converted for aerial survey duties, after which she was delivered to the Institut Geographique National de France, serving there from 1948 to 1978, when she was withdrawn from service but withheld as a spares source for the Institute's fleet of B-17s. She was finally sold off, along with the rest of the fleet, in 1984.

Her time at Blackbushe, when she was owned by Doug Arnold, was 1984 to 1986. She later resided at Duxford as G-FORT, before making the trip back to the US in 1987. She now resides there as N900RW at the Lone Star Flight Museum in Galveston, Texas, where she is marked as 42-38050 "Thunderbird".