06/10 2001, updated 02/03 2025 by PS
The Boeing B-17 'Flying Fortress' used is modified for SAR (Search and Rescue) operations and it rescues Bond and Domino from their life raft in the end sequence of 'Thunderball'.
J.S. Brady reports:
'The Boeing B-17 used in the film was built under license from Boeing by Douglas Aircraft in California. It left for the Pacific a month before Japan's surrender in 1945. Intermountain Aviation used the B-17 for firefighting and to develop the Fulton Skyhook and it was this plane which demonstrated the device in 'Thunderball'.
The bomber was acquired by Evergreen Aviation in 1975, and restored to original condition between 1987 and 1990. Today, fully restored though sporting the markings of a Bomb Group it never belonged to, it is on display in the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, USA. It flies regularly, and is available for hire.'
In 2014 the Collings Foundation acquired the B-17 from the Evergreen Aviation Museum. It is currently (2024) under restoration. See the planes interesting history at the Collings Foundation website.
The Fulton surface-to-air recovery system was developed by inventor Robert Edison Fulton Jr. for the CIA in the early 1950s.
Intermountain Aviation was a CIA airline front company performing covert operations in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War era.
Jane's Historic Military Aircraft recognition guide, Tony Holmes, HarperCollinsPublishers 1998, page 118.
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