Family that I met had relative that was a WWII B-17 crew member. They said in paperwork they found after his passing, stated that in two bombing missions his position was as a Nicky operator on the B-17. I cannot find anything on that term on the old interweb. Anybody have any expertise on the term nicky? Is it flying slang term, like jack of all trades?

Are you sure it was a "Nicky" operator and not a "Mickey" operator for the ground scanning radar I think was introduced in 1943? You can research,H2X "Mickey" radar on the net for details.

I think that is a term used to refer to the Norton Bomb sight. That was how he got his letter by the censors, and probably shouldn't have!

Ivan

I'm thinking it was the "Mickey" or the H2X airborne radar system, developed from the "Stinky", which was a development of the H2S British airborne radar. It was called "Mickey" as a shortened form of "Mickey Mouse" because the radome looked cobbled on as an afterthought, where the chin turret usually fit.

Had he been using a Norden bombsight, there would be the question why only two missions? Was he injured, or shot down? The bombsight was a very technical piece of equipment and bombardiers were trained to use them, so he wouldn't have been operating one for just a couple of missions unless something happened to him.

The Mickey was used on pathfinder aircraft which were at the forefront of the bomber formation. They were designed to olocate the target through cloud layers, and the planes in formation would all drop on signal from the pathfinder aircraft

Another vote for the H2X.

I used to volunteer at an aviation museum that had a B-17 on display, and “Mickey operator” is a term I’ve heard, although ours didn’t have one. Never “Nicky”, though.

The early H2X radomes were mounted behind the chin turret.

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You people are so smart and a great reservoir of information. You are correct it is mickey. The word was written on the back of a picture and hard to read!

"The name used by the Air Force was H2X, or its more commonly used name of Mickey. H2S was the next improvement to H2X. The Mickey operator would work directly with the bombardier by feeding dropping angles to be incorporated in the Norden bombsight optics thus synchronizing the bombsight rate and course by adjusting ground speed, drift and distance to the target."

Thanks!!

That also sounds like a pretty technical job and not one done ‘part time’.
Maybe he was being trained?

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