From the March 2, 2014, Register Guard "Museum volunteers building vintage WWII plane" by Mitch Stacy.
Urbana, Ohio.
One part was found under an elderly woman's front porch and another part was hanging in a Colorado bar after it had been a prop for a 1960s TV show. The tail section was salvaged from a wreck deep in the Alaska wilderness.
None have been built in nearly 70 years, that is, until now.
Volunteers at the Champaign Aviation Museum will buy or barter for parts and even build parts if necessary, but they intend to build a B-17 bomber they call the "Champaign Lady."
Completion is years away, but even now, it has the familiar lines of one of the famous World War II bombers being built in a hangar. It is 74 feet long and has four engines.
Volunteer Frank Drain designed the nose art which features a leggy 40s pinup girl against an outline of Ohio.
More than 12,700 B-17s were built. There are around 40 left in the world and of those, fewer than a dozen are in flying condition.
The volunteers are designing the "Champaign Lady" so that it will fly. The initial parts are from five different planes and about 100 volunteers are working on it.
Go "Champaign Lady." --GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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