B-17 Queen of the Skies is a clever and innovative simulation machine, but not much of a game. The fact that the guide to the game refers to it early on as a "game"---yep, with quotations marks---seems to confirm this opinion.
So as an educational simulation, this is a success--I learned about the oxygen supplies, heating, and varied guns on a B-17--but as a game that a person plays, this thing isn't very compelling.
Largely, the player rolls dice, looks up the results on one of more than 50 charts, and writes down or moves chits accordingly. Almost no decisions are made other than by dice destiny, unless the player for some reason decides not shoot at the bad guys or to abort the mission.
I do admire the use of the three boards (map of the region, an internal map of the plane, and an external view of the immediate surroundings of the plane), and I did feel some tension when I finally dropped the payload in my missions, but with some more control over things, some room to actually "play", this innovative simulation could've been a great game.
I don't doubt that a person's emotional investment in the team goes up with successive missions, but Thunderbolt Apache Leader and Ambush! give me that with games that offer lots of tough decisions and compelling chrome.