B-17 Ball Turret
 

Any one have the straight dope on B-17 ball turret? I was told that the ball turret
could not be raised up into the plane.At one air show I was told that the ball turret
could be raised into the plane. I read about a plane could not drop the wheels and
the ball turret man was killed.

Well, you'd think that if they couldn't get the wheels down the gunner would get out of the ball turret before they attempted a landing!

Wasn't the ball turret invented by Mr. Tucker? --as in the movie "Tucker."

The ball turret on the B-17 could NOT be raised into the fuselage. So if some poor gunner was trapped there and the landing gear would not come down, they would have to do a belly landing the ball turret would be crushed! But the ball turret in a B-24 liberator could be raised into the fuselage. So things looked a bit better for a Liberator ball turret gunner ...providing the raising mechanism didn't get shot up too. Hope this clears things up. ...Mark

Here is a couple of photo's I took of a B17 Ball Turret, from this, you can see that it cannot go fully into the fuselage.

http://www.patriotfiles.com/forum/iipcache/511.png

http://www.patriotfiles.com/forum/iipcache/512.png