As long as they didn't drop turkeys.
Posted on 03/28/2015 6:58:56 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The Flying Fortress was made famous in its role in the Daylight Strategic Bombing Campaign of WWII and the post-war movies, like Memphis Belle, that made it an icon. Now this B-17 is no longer avoiding anti-aircraft fire or enemy fighters but has exchanged its explosive warheads in order to drop people from the bomb bay.
The four-engine taildragger was built in 1945, too late to see combat, and now flies as part the World War II aircraft collection with the Collings Foundation. This particular B-17 has served many roles over the years including Air and Sea Rescue, a water bombing firefighter, as well a testing the effects of three different nuclear explosion. Jumpers for the Chicagoland Skydiving Center had the rare opportunity drop from the belly of the antique bomber.
The Collings B-17 is part of the Wings of Freedom Flight Experience that is currently touring the country and gives patrons the opportunity to take flights in a variety of warbirds including the B-24 and B-25 bombers as well as a P-51 Mustang. Flights aren't cheap, but the majority of the cost is a tax-deductible donation to a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit and the chance to ride in one of these vintage aircraft might be considered priceless.
My father was a tech sargeant on the B17 s. I always want to see one.
I was looking for work in Casper Wyoming when I looked up to see one flying out of there.
Shiny and beautiful
ping
I salute your dad. The ball turret is the worst of all gunner positions as you can’t even stand up during the flight. Just asking, I thought it was 25 missions before a discharge?
Wow! Felt like I was watching “Air America” there at the 2:00 mark.
Thanks.
As long as they didn't drop turkeys.
I helped ship one to England for their war museum. Got to crawl over it and help disassemble it. I was a teenager at the time and scrawny, but it was still really tight crawling down to the tail gun.
They actually flew one out of the boneyard all the way to Jolly Old England. Had to get special permits because it had no modern comms. It was a sight!
Before 30-days leave.
I’ve had the luck to climb inside a B-17 and a B-24. They look big, until you get inside.
CC
To see a large formation of bombers like the B-17 overhead was called “aluminium overcast”.
CC
In 68 on the Liebre/Canyon Fire I was an 18 year old CHILAO HOTSHOT. Pete Trujillo was our Superintendent I was in Crew 1-53 as a hot shovel, Gary and I were out front of the crews hot-spotting when a yucca plant burnt out of the ground and went rolling down to the bottom of some little canyon (you know what the canyons look like there so I hope you know what I mean by little canyon). The yucca rolled down the slope like a basketball sized fire ball and stopped under a clump of class 14 brush. When we got to it it was about 20 square feet of fire and we started throwing dirt at it, a little cross wind gust caught it an in an eyeblink it was about 20 square acres of fire. All Gary said to me was RUN JAMES RUN. All the while I am running and thinking I don’t mind dieing; but I really don’t want to burn, oh GOD please don’t let me burn. We kept running up the mountain towards a rocky out crop and Gary is on the airnet radio telling the pilots where we are and where we are heading. We get to the rocks and Gary is still on the radio directing the pilots into us, and down below us is nothing but a literal sea of fire and I just knew it was going to get us.
No where else to go, no time to set up the fire shelters, then Gary yells at me to get down. Out of the smoke comes this great big beautiful B-17 with the bomb doors open and a solid wall of pink snot coming straight at us.
Stay down, get small, and hold on tight, when that stuff hits it’s like getting hit by a train. First B-17 hit us straight on, second B-17 dropped south just below us right on the fire front, and the third bracketed us on the south east. I swear to GOD all three of those pilots were cutting brush with their props. Those guys saved both my life and Gary’s that day. I never did find out who they were, but all they ever have to do is mark the spot on their ass and I will kiss it.
Only time I have ever feared for my life state side, one of only three times in my life I have ever thought this is it. You have a tendency to remember.
Thank you. I was wondering where they got the name for that plane.
Thanks for the post.
That must have been when my dad went to the Isle of Capri for R&R, he probably talked more about that than anything else, said it was beautiful.
I’ve been aboard that aircraft when she was at Metcalf Field back in the mid-90’s with the CAF. Her cockpit has about the same room as a VW Beetle, and one gets quite a sense of awe for all those who flew them into combat. The skin of those aircraft is thin enough to be able to move it outward with thumb pressure. Not exactly proof against 20mm cannon fire...
Sweet!
I knew a guy who was a radio operator in a B-17. Was shot down on his third mission in ‘43 and spent the last days of the war as a POW.
I know a guy who belongs to a New York ultralight club...he once told me he tends to get a little unnerved while flying during hunting season upstate, when he can hear gunfire on the ground ...."This is New York, after all".
(Briol was wifey’s uncle) This was a great little book.
that the foundation I bought the flight on couple years ago
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