The warbird community suffered a tragedy today with the loss of the crews of a B-17G and P-63 at the Wings Over Dallas airshow. May they rest in peace.
Like most other surviving B-17s, N7227C Texas Raiders did not see combat service during WWII, having only been completed (by Douglas) in July 1945 as 44-83872, when Flying Fortress production was at last winding down. The USAAF had no need of her as a strategic bomber, with B-29s crowding Pacific airbases, but the Navy did have a use for her – as an Airborne Early Warning platform, designated PB-1W. Protecting task forces as sea with sufficient radar warning of Kamikaze strikes demanded getting radars airborne, and the radar-equipped TB-3Ws were only a partial answer. The land-based PB-1Ws would allow for longer-duration AEW missions, being fitted with large radomes for the AN/APS-20 radar where the bomb bay was formerly located.
The PB-1Ws were too late to see action in WWII, but were to fly with the Navy until 1955, when much larger and more capable radar-equipped Super Constellations began arriving. BuNo 77235 lasted until the end of the PB-1W era, having flown support missions during the Korean War, and was subsequently stored until being sold into commercial service in 1957. It spent the next decade doing aerial surveying work, until being purchased by the then Confederate Air Force. The aircraft was subsequently reworked back into B-17G configuration, as flown as Texas Raiders, with markings from the USAAF’s 381st Bombardment Group (Heavy).
The other aircraft involved was Bell P-63F Kingcobra 43-11719 / N6763. This was the first of a pair of F-models built, with the V-1710-135 engine and a larger vertical tail. These were built from P-63E airframes, but the abundant supply of aircraft such as the P-51 and the imminent arrival of jets meant that these features would not be carried over onto production examples. N6763 saw postwar use as an air racer, and had been acquired by the CAF in the early 1980s.
U.S. Experimental & Prototype Aircraft Projects: Fighters 1939-1945 includes a photo of 43-11719 and coverage of other members of the Bell Cobra line.
Air Classics November 1982 issue has a front cover photo that includes Texas Raiders in flight
Christopher M. Reed