Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress March 1944. All of the aircraft were sent to reclamation, mostly at RFC Ontario in May 1945, being broken up and smelted. (A couple of the YB-40s can be seen in the 1946 movie "The Best Years of Our Lives", in the famous scene shot at the Ontario "graveyard".) No airframes were sold on the civil market. Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress The Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress was a modification for operational testing purposes of the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber aircraft, converted to act as a heavily armed gunship for other bombers during World War II. At the time of its
RAF Bomber Command aircrew of World War II air gunner to man the mid-upper gun turret although sometimes the gunners would agree to exchange turrets. At the outbreak of war in September 1939 operational Royal Air Force bomber squadrons in Europe were equipped with two main categories of bombers, single-engined Fairey Battle and twin-engined Bristol Blenheim light bombers and Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Vickers Wellington and Handley Page Hampden medium bombers. Bomber Command aircrew "trades" flying operationally in the early stages of the war were: Pilot – A qualified pilot flew the aircraft and in the Royal Air Force was usually the captain (function not rank) of the crew,