After discussing the incident with my father, who served as Flight Engineer
during WWII, he mentioned that part of his job as FE (at least on his crew)
was to manually check and lock the gear after they were deployed even if the
pilot's indicator said they were locked. He said that on more than one
occasion they were not locked. Also I wonder if it's possible that on the
Aluminum Overcast only one gear "really" failed and the other then collapsed
because of unusual stresses. ?

"James Robinson" wrote in message
...
The B-17 bomber owned by the Experimental Aircraft Assn. was damaged
yesterday at Van Nuys airport when its main gear collaped.

From the videos on TV, you could see its tail wheel firmly on the
ground, when the main gear retracted, and the aircraft dropped onto the
runway. The crew must had had that sinking feeling about then. It slid
perhaps 50 feet or so on its belly.

The media seems to like to say it made a belly landing, or a rough
landing, but it was apparent that it had already landed, and was simply
completing the rollout, and was preparing to turn off when it happened.

Anyway, here's a link to their web site, where they have a short
description of the incident:

http://www.b17.org/

And a typical media story:

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1...129868,00.html

I couldn't find the video clip, but I assume it will appear online
sometime today.

I hope they can get it flying again soon.