Aluminium Overcast

The latest addition to Sav's portfolio.

Aluminium Overcast is a B-17 Flying Fortress, built by Lockheed Aircraft Company and delivered to the U.S. Army Air Corps in May 1945, too late to realise her military career in World War II.

Just 6 months later she was sold for scrap, but was rescued and began her long and varied career as an aerial mapping aircraft.

Next she was adapted to transport cattle for a couple of years, before being reverted back to aerial photography and surveillance over the Middle East and Asia.

Her next job was as a pest control, forest dusting and fire fighting aircraft, before being parked up for a couple of years.

Finally she was rescued again and restored to a near-wartime appearance. It was at this point that she was renamed Aluminium Overcast, commemorating the 601st's, 398th Bomb Group's B-17 that was shot down over France on 13th August 1944.

Veterans of 398th B.G. Helped with her restoration and one of her first flight crew ( Col. Harold Weekley, ret'd ) had actually flown the original namesake.

Aluminium Overcast has become one of the most recognisable examples of a Flying Fortress as due to her extensive touring in the U.S. and Canada, she has clocked up more than one million flight miles.

Not bad for an old bird, eh?!