[throwup238]

[1] says they rotated and only flew every third day:

> So began Fitzpatrick’s life as an air warrior. At first, bomber crews had to fly 25 missions to earn the right to rotate home. Because of high casualties, the Army Air Forces leadership increased the number to 30. The crews rotated, and as a result Fitzpatrick flew every third day. “I got 25 missions in before the end of the war,” he said. “I did most of my flying in the winter of ‘45 and the spring.”

They often flew 20+ hour missions. I have no idea how they'd operate like that without switching crews or underutilizing the plane.

[1] https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/25-missions-over-f...

[mulmen]

B-17s aren’t Corollas. It can’t operate like an airliner.

[throwup238]

They're not F22s either, they didn't need to go in for major maintenance every sortie. They had inspections after every flight and daily/25/50/100 hour inspections [1] but most of the time they went hundreds of hours before needing major work that would take a plane out of rotation for extended periods of time.

[1] https://www.historicflyingclothing.com/en-GB/ww2-usaaf-manua...

[mulmen]

How long did those regular services take? 20 hour missions means they’re going in for service every mission. The 50 hour is every other mission.

Between the B-17 and B-24 we built about 30,000 strategic bombers in WWII. They don’t all have to be in the air regularly to maintain constant 1000+ bomber formations.

If you can find any account of how crews sharing aircraft regularly I’d love to see it because I have never heard anything like that.