B-17 Flying Fortress Restoration : The Story of a World War II Bomber's Return to Glory in Honor of the Veterans of the Mighty Eighth Air Force

The arrival of the WWII B-17 bomber at the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in January of 2009 initiated a great adventure for a group of warbird lovers from the nearby communities as they united to restore that B-17. The dream of the volunteers was to honor the WWII veterans of the Eighth Air Force—some of whom were literally their fathers—by restoring the B-17 to its original pristine condition. The group was challenged by the fact that the airplane had been in storage for more than two decades following a long working life, and was far from the gleaming symbol of power that it had been in 1945.