Desert Rat B-17E Flying Fortress

The Restoration

The scrap airframe sat unnoticed until it was acquired by Mike Kellner of Marengo IL for the sum of $7250.  As a young man Mike had dreamed of flying a B-17 and was not going to pass on this opportunity.  After purchasing the leftovers, his first challenge was just getting the salvage moved from Maine to Marengo, IL.  It was a logistical nightmare just to get the parts moved and Mike put up a large shed on his property to house the project.  Over the last 35 years Mike has assembled a team of volunteers ranging from expert engineers to broom pushers to work on the project.  Given the state of the airframe when it was acquired the is much work to be done.  Many of the larger (or longer) parts such as longerons spars were cut and need to be recreated from scratch.  Most of the skin panels must be refabricated and heat treated by hand.  It goes without saying that all if the aircraft systems such as electrical wiring, oxygen, fuel, and hydraulic systems will all have to be recreated from scratch.

Their goal is to restore the aircraft to it’s original B-17E configuration which will even undo the 1943 conversion to the XC-108 configuration.  A restoration within a restoration?

So where did the name “Desert Rat” come from?  Several years ago, while removing paint from one of the bare aluminum nose panels, the name “Desert Rat” was exposed under other layers of paint.  On another nose panel the name “Tangerine” appeared.  Based on the overlaying layers of paint it was assumed that the name “Desert Rat” was the original so that is what the project is going to stick with.

Mike Kellner, Bill Stanczak and many others have put decades of blood, sweat, tears, and dollars into this restoration in the hope that the “Desert Rat” will once again grace the skies in remembrance of the hundreds of thousands of people who built (and restored!), maintained, flew and yes, loved, the B-17.