Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress 'City of Svannah'

The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engine heavy bomber aircraft developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps.

First flight: July 28, 1935

This airframe was produced in May 1945 at an aircraft-assembly plant in Long Beach, Calif. By the time it rolled out of the hangar, the war in Europe was drawing to a close, so the Army Air Force simply dropped the airplane from its rolls. It spent 20 years taking photographs around the world for a mapmaking company in Canada. In 1984, the airplane was traded to the Smithsonian Institution and placed in long-term storage. It remained in storage until the Smithsonian presented it to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in 2009.