Assembly ship

An assembly ship (also known as a formation ship or Judas goat) was a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress or Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber (usually an older model) that was stripped down of its armaments and given extra flares, navigational equipment, and unique distinctive paint scheme in order to organize combat box formations more quickly.

However, these formations required time to assemble and in 1943 the idea of using older model bombers to guide the others was devised.

Each paint scheme was unique and different flare colors carried by each assembly ship in order to more quickly organize the pilots of a particular bomber formation.

[2] The use of combat boxes and thus assembly ships continued throughout the war even after long-range fighter escorts like the North American P-51 Mustang and Lockheed P-38 Lightning were put into service.

Due to the fact that PT-17s lacked a radio, an aircraft specially painted with stripes was used to indicate that students should return home if there was bad weather or another emergency.