The Boeing B-17 is perhaps one of the most famous bombers that ever flew. Its unique, pugnacious look is instantly recognizable.
Some of the more well-versed will remember the earlier progenitor, the enormous XB-15.
However, completely forgotten today is the aircraft that came of the XB-15 design work which took to the sky first, the XYB-17 of 1934.
While gutting out the various problems of giant-ism the XB-15 presented, it occurred to Boeing engineers that maybe smaller was better. They downsized the plans and improved streamlining, both which it was hoped would aid mass-production should the Air Corps offer a contract.
The new bomber was powered by four Pratt & Whitney R-1690 Hornet 9 cylinder radial engines attractively enclosed in tight NACA cowlings designed from the latest wind-tunnel test data. The prototype was built under wraps and under the cover of the XB-15 project. As an off-the books, off-cycle appropriation funded development, it would be officially known as the XYB-17.
A drizzly, foggy early April day was used for roll-out and initial flight as this was also the first engine run-up of the ginormous XB-15 which was happening on the other end of Boeing Field so the press and public would be suitably distracted.
The smaller, but still big-for-its-day bomber took off like a homesick angel as the crowd gathered way at the far side of the airfield ooohhed and awwed as the massive XB-15's engines came loudly to life. Shrouded in the mist miles away, the XYB-17 performed like a champ, setting a new, unofficial time-to-altitude record for multi-engine aircraft.
The report by an Air Corps officer riding along on the test flight was glowing and the XYB-17 was secretly flown at high altitude to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio for further testing. It was here that the gremlins struck. Sticky gust locks prevented the XYB-17 from completing the test program and the Air Corps was also balking at the expense of XYB-17's vast expanse of perspex.
Boeing broke down the XYB-17 into its component parts and shipped it by rail back to Seattle to fix the gust lock problem and the Air Corps eventually purchased it for further evaluation. Unfortunately, by this time the XB-17 had successfully flown so the XYB-17 would shortly disappear in ignominy.
Its sole claim to fame besides leading to the B-17 would be the brief press it got flying relief to the snow-bound during the terrible blizzards of 1936 in the inter-mountain west.
At this point, photos and newsreel footage of early B-17s were ubiquitous and the public easily confused the XYB-17 with its more famous younger brothers. The XYB-17 flew as a research platform and long-range special transport until withdrawn from service and stress-tested to destruction in early 1942. All that exists today is this desk model from the 1939 Woolworth's catalog, mis-labeled as "America's Flying Fortress the Boeing B-17".
Brian da Basher