Editing Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress (section)

=== Special operations ===
B-17s were used by the CIA front companies Civil Air Transport, Air America and Intermountain Aviation for special missions. These included B-17G ''44-85531'', registered as N809Z. These aircraft were primarily used for agent drop missions over the People's Republic of China, flying from Taiwan, with Taiwanese crews. Four B-17s were shot down in these operations.<ref>Pocock, Chris. ''The Black Bats: CIA Spy Flights Over China From Taiwan, 1951–1969''. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Military History, 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-7643-3513-6}}.</ref>{{page needed |date=February 2024}}

In 1957 the surviving B-17s had been stripped of all weapons and painted black. One of these Taiwan-based B-17s was flown to [[Clark Air Base]] in the Philippines in mid-September, assigned for covert missions into Tibet.

On 28 May 1962, N809Z, piloted by Connie Seigrist and Douglas Price, flew Major James Smith, USAF and Lieutenant Leonard A. LeSchack, USNR to the abandoned Soviet arctic ice station NP 8, as [[Operation Coldfeet]]. Smith and LeSchack parachuted from the B-17 and searched the station for several days. On 1 June, Seigrist and Price returned and picked up Smith and LeSchack using a [[Fulton Skyhook]] system installed on the B-17.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.utdallas.edu/library/collections/speccoll/Leeker/b17.pdf |title=The Boeing B-17s |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100928084808/http://www.utdallas.edu/library/collections/speccoll/Leeker/b17.pdf |archive-date=28 September 2010 |website=utdallas.edu |accessdate= 25 July 2011}}</ref> N809Z was used to perform a Skyhook pick up in the James Bond movie ''[[Thunderball (film)|Thunderball]]'' in 1965. This aircraft, now restored to its original B-17G configuration, was on display in the [[Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum]] in [[McMinnville, Oregon]] until it was sold to the [[Collings Foundation]] in 2015.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.collingsfoundation.org/2015/12/b-17-flying-fortress-to-join-cf/|title = B-17 Flying Fortress to join CF |publisher=the Collings Foundation |date=2015}}</ref>