Posted on 10/02/2019 7:59:01 AM PDT by Vermont Lt
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I saw a B17G bomber last Saturday in Crossville, TN!
I think it was a different one, but it was magnificent
Our primary airplane is a Piper Cherokee that just turned 50, but it has a little nearly bullet proof Lycoming O-320. If it quits the plane has a 10 to 1 glide ratio and a low stall speed. That old T6 is more likely to have engine failure and it has to land at a much faster speed.
As it turned out, I had a tee time and previous engagement to play golf on the day of the show, so I couldn't skip the golf.
While on the course, we saw three very large planes, low on the horizon, and they were headed our way. They flew in a triangular formation, right over us. The engines emitted a hum like I had never heard before, and it was quite a sight.
Sounds like a good & bad day to me. One was useful, and one was always useless. 8>)
FiFi is a B-29.
The B17 was valuable, Bernie isn’t.
Thanks.
Concur. I love those planes.
I got to fly in an Israeli-badged B-17 probably 25 years ago as a passenger. (Long story, but several B-17s were transferred to Israel on a very circuitous route not long after WWII.)
Lot of fun.
FiFi is a B29!
Back in the early 1980s, an air show at the Des Moines Airport promised all sorts of military gear and a special guest, a British Vulcan bomber.
The bomber and crew had been a feature at another show near Omaha and radio stations covered nearly every minute of the half hour flight to Des Moines.
As the big green airplane approached, the control tower directed the pilot to switch to the shorter cross wind runway.
The pilot did his best, but the Vulcan overshot the runway and swung north over the downtown, prepairing for his second try.
I remember four black trails of sooty burned fuel trailing visibly over the city.
Wife and son and I walked over to the show and met the pilot, representing the 44th Rhodesia Squadron. A higher-up offficer was on hand for the greeting and asked if the pilot had trouble with the sudden switch.
“No problem, sir. No problem,” was his reply.
No FiFi is a B-29.
Was the plane a total loss? So sad.
Not many of these babies left anymore.
When I was a kid I knew an old guy who had served as the radio man on one. Used to regale me with tales of their raids on Germany. Engrossing stuff.
A few years ago, I was walking up a side walk getting ready to enter a hospital in Ellsworth, Maine in order to have my home blood pressure machine calibrated by a nurse.
I heard airplane engines overhead and thought, “That sounds like a World War II bomber!”
I looked overhead and sure enough, it was a B-17 Flying Fortress. My uncle flew one in Europe during WW II.
The aircraft was on display all weekend at the Bar Harbor - Trenton Airport here in Maine. For $450.00, the civilian crew would take a number of passengers up into the wild blue yonder. I wish I had been one of them.
I visited the Museum of The Mighty Eighth Air Force in Pooler Georgia last Saturday.
The museum has a highly polished B-17 on display. The exhibit contains engine cut aways as well as turrets with the guns.
An airman who is 102 made a short entrance pointing to a map with the locations of his 25 missions.
They have no B-24 because there simply are none existent.
The museum is right o I 95 and is worth a visit.
Damn.
My son loved crawling through that plane the last time it came here to Montgomery.
Before today there were only nine airworthy B-17’s left in the world, with a further 39 complete airframes on display.
I was surprised at how little room there was to move around.
I also remember the noise!
Marko
FiFi is huge compared to the B-17.
6’2 270 pound me didn’t move to well.
Some sections were blocked partially with plexiglass.
One of the guys in my office flew on their B24 last week.
He also flew on their restored Huey helicopter.
Some of his buddies flew on this same B17 on Friday from ME to NH.
This same airshow was here in Nashua this past weekend.
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