[ARC5] B-17's in the Late 1950's

[Robert Eleazer]

Many of the B-17's operated from Patrick AFB in the late 1950's were drone target aircraft.  A friend of mine described seeing a drone B-17 land at the Cape Canaveral Skid Strip  and run off the runway, engines still running.  Because it was a drone and unmanned they feared injury to people trying to recover it and thus let it eventually burn up.  He said he could not believe they would let a perfectly good B-17 burn like that, but I guess they were, by definition expendable.

Wayne