RE: The sound of a B-17
A few years ago was the 50th anniversary of the B-17, big events here in
Seattle at the Museum of Flight.  So I took the family there.  We did the
tour of the B-17 and were about to leave when they announced the the B-17
and other WWII warbirds were all going to fire up and take off so I insisted
we stay a little longer.  And the B-17, the B-25, a P-51 Mustang, a Corsair
and IIRC at least one other aircraft fired up, took off, and made a low pass
along the length of Boeing Field.  I told the boys and my wife to pay
attention, theat they would probably never see or hear any such thing again
in their lifetime.  An era gone but for some of us not forgotten.  Although
very young during WWII I was growing up about five miles as the crow flies,
on the side of a hill overlooking Boeing Field.  Those birds were in out sky
all the time, you can't forget what they sounded like.