YB 17 Flying Fortress Machine Gun Testing

May 1942, Langley Field, Virginia, YB-17 bombardment squadron. Testing of the machine guns on the YB 17 Flying Fortress at the Army’s testing facility in Langley, Virginia. Founded in 1916, Langley Field was the home of a pioneering military air facility and the civilian aeronautics lab of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Together, they transformed American aviation and remade the once pastoral town of Hampton and its surrounding environs into a large metropolitan region with a population of over 1.6 million residents.

4×5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.