The Flying Fortress of B17 is a titanic, genial nation, ruled by Edward Curtis Wells with an even hand, and notable for its frequent executions, compulsory military service, and punitive income tax rates. The compassionate population of 17.723 billion pilots are prohibited from doing almost everything except voting, which they do timidly and conservatively.

The enormous, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Education, Defense, and Law & Order. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of The Cockpit. The average income tax rate is 72.8%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The pilots economy, worth 923 trillion dollars a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a slick, highly efficient, quite specialized black market in Information Technology, Arms Manufacturing, Book Publishing, and Cheese Exports. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is 52,121 dollars, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.5 times as much as the poorest.

Everyone wants to be on the guest list for diplomatic parties, politicians have literally dirty hands from their extracurricular activities, one does not simply walk into the tundra, and childish pranks are no laughing matter. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. B17's national animal is the P-51 Mustang and its national religion is Boeing.

B17 is ranked 209,322^nd in the world and 34^th in Kyorgia puppet storage for Largest Insurance Industry, scoring -2.79 on the Risk Expulsion Effectiveness Rating.