One of the great things about the B-17 Flying Fortress was it that it had the Norden bombsight. It was an amazing piece of equipment and a closely guarded secret at the time. The sight was actually installed on the aircraft before takeoff and removed after returning. The bombardiers were sworn to secrecy about the sight, it could not get into the enemies hands.

It was supposed to be accurate enough to drop bombs into a 100 foot circle from about 20,000 feet. It was actually estimated that about 50 percent of bombs dropped hit within a ¼ mile of the target. Later on the lead planes bombardier would use the Norden sight and all planes would drop their bombs on his command, this seemed to improve accuracy some.

The sight itself contained two primary parts, the stabilizer and sight head. It was a gyro operated stabilizer which was able to keep the sight stable. The target was acquired by viewing through a telescope that was part of the sight. Later versions were able to fly the aircraft to the target after the bombardier had locked on the target. Upon reaching the correct point it would automatically release the bombs.

The complete function of the bomb sight was pretty complicated because a lot of factors went into its operation and the bombardiers were highly trained in its operation. The sight was first calculated on a test target and when approaching the actual target the sight was turned on and it took the aircraft into its bombing run on autopilot.