<p>c/n 8627(-VE)
Actual US military serial 44-85718.
Purchased by Institut Geographique National (IGN) at Creil, France, in 1947 and registered as F-BEEC. Operated by IGN on surveying work until 1978, including time in South Africa as ZS-EEC, and then stored until 1984. 
Made airworthy again, she then became G-FORT with Doug Arnold’s ‘Warbirds of Great Britain’, moving on to The Fighter Collection at Duxford in 1986. Repainted in her current scheme as “Thunderbird”, she was delivered to Texas in July 1987 and joined the Lone Star Flight Museum. 
She is seen in the museum’s previous home at Galveston, Texas, United States.
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18th March 2017
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/people/65001151@N03">Alan Wilson</a> from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK
CC BY-SA 2.0
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajw1970/39677442954/">Nose art on B-17G Flying Fortress ‘238050 / BN-U’ (N900RW) “Thunderbird”</a>