B-17 Flying Fortress

StumbleUpon has an article by Swayne Martin about one of Rico's favorite aircraft:

In 1940, one B-17 bomber cost a little over two hundred thousand dollars to produce. That's over three million dollars in today's money. With 12,731 B-17s produced, the production run would cost over $38 billion today.
The Army Air Corps (USAAC) proposed the Flying Fortress on 8 August 1934 to replace the smaller, aging Martin B-10 (photo, top).
Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, fewer than two hundred B-17s were in service with the Army.
The YB-40, a modified B-17F, was developed as a super-armed gunship to protect other bombers in the days before escort fighters. Its gross weight was four thousand pounds heavier than a fully armed B-17, increasing its time to climb to twenty thousand feet from twenty-five minutes to forty-eight minutes.
The B-17G had thirteen .50-caliber machine guns. Gun locations included: single-gun waist and cheek gunners, and chin, top, ball, and tail turrets.
 Over six hundred thousand tons of bombs were dropped by B-17s on Nazi Germany alone during World War Two (photo, bottom).
Crew members dealt with very cold flights in the unpressurized cabins, with temperature gauges in the cockpit frequently reading minus forty degrees Fahrenheit. Crews stayed warm in fleece-lined uniforms.
Late in World War Two, at least 25 B-17s were fitted with radio controls and television cameras, loaded with twenty thousand pounds of high-explosives, and dubbed BQ-7 "Aphrodite missiles" for Operation Aphrodite.  These "Aphrodite missiles" were to be flown into targets via CQ-17 "mothership" control aircraft. However, of the fourteen missions using Flying Fortresses, none were successful.
Approximately forty B-17s were captured and refurbished by the German Luftwaffe, with about a dozen put back into the air.
A Philippines-captured USAAF Boeing B-17D, in Japanese markings, was flown to Japan for thorough technical evaluation by the Japanese Air Force.
B-17s were flown all over the world, in the air forces of various nations and as civilian aircraft.
Of the 12,731 originally produced, less than fifteen B-17s fly today (photo, middle).
A B-17 sustained a mid-air collision with a German BF-109, yet managed to fly home and land in terrible condition without major injuries to any of the crew members. With its strength and reliability, it's no wonder that this iconic airplane gained the nickname The Flying Fortress.

Rico says there were prettier aircraft (though damn few), and bigger aircraft (the B-29), but no better aircraft for getting the job done and getting home safely...