page_title: Liberty Belle (aircraft)
section_title: Commemorative Liberty Belle B-17
hierarchical_section_title: Liberty Belle (aircraft) / Commemorative Liberty Belle B-17
caption_attribution_description: English: AL237-036 B-24D 41-23920 90th BG 321st BS - Liberty Belle (Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive)
context_page_description: Liberty Belle was a popular moniker with over two dozen known individual Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and Consolidated B-24 Liberators using the name in combat during World War II.
  The combat Liberty Belles were commemorated by two B-17s which used the name, with one still remaining as a static display: Miss Liberty Belle is displayed at the Grissom Air Museum. The Liberty Foundation flew a composite B-17 named Liberty Belle
context_section_description: The Boeing B-17(SN 44-85734) did not see combat in World War II, and was originally sold on 25 June 1947, as scrap to Esperado Mining Co. of Altus, Oklahoma; it was then sold again later that year for $2,700 to Pratt & Whitney, which operated the B-17 as a heavily modified test bed (similar to 44-85747 and 44-85813). Following these flights, it was donated to the Connecticut Aeronautical Historic Association, where a tornado on 3 October 1979, blew another aircraft onto the B-17's midsection, breaking the fuselage.
  The B-17 was eventually purchased by aviation enthusiast Don Brooks, who formed the Liberty Foundation to exhibit the plane as the Liberty Belle. Restoration began in 1992 with parts from another damaged B-17 (44-85813), performed by Tom Reilly and company/Flying Tigers Warbird Restoration Museum (aka "Bombertown USA"), located at that time at Kissimmee Gateway field, Kissimmee, Florida. She returned to the air on 8 December 2004, and had been touring the air show circuit since then. The Liberty Foundation also planned an historic overseas tour in July 2008 along the northern ferry route to England.
  On the morning of 13 June 2011, Liberty Belle made a forced landing in Oswego, Illinois, after taking off from Aurora Municipal Airport in Sugar Grove, Illinois. Shortly after takeoff, the pilot of a T-6 Texan chase plane informed Liberty Belle's pilot that the B-17 inboard left wing was on fire and advised an immediate landing. The bomber landed successfully in a nearby field and the seven people aboard were able to evacuate without injury, but due to the muddy ground the fire engines could not reach it, allowing the fire to spread and destroy the plane. The bomber's remains were stored in a hangar in Aurora for a few days before being taken back to its home at Brooks Aviation Inc in Douglas, Georgia. It is currently under rebuild, possibly to airworthy status, using the forward fuselage of another B-17 (44-83387) and other new parts, but when the restoration will be completed is unknown.
caption: Liberty Belle, #42-23920 - Nose art of the B-24D of the 90th Bomb Group, 321st Bomb Squadron, (Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive)
exif: {}