Saw a B-17 Flying Fortress flying today.

[electronjohn]

Yeah, just imagine being a 20 year old kid...never even FLOWN before. Finish your training and they hand you the keys to a B-17 or a P-51. I have nothing but the utmost respect for WWII vets...they went through hell and some didn't make it back. My Dad's cousin was a B-24 ball turret gunner...a job reserved for short guys, of course...and even then his stories of worming into that turret and battling through flak, ME-109s and everything else were hair-raising.

 

[ScramMan2]

Yup it's EAA week. I get to drive by there on my way back south tonight. I've seen several B-17's heading in and out of Oshkosh over the years.

During the week I'm about 25 min NW of Oshkosh. We get a lot of EAA traffic circling our area, including the warbirds.

USAF Thunderbirds will be performing on the lakefront in Milwaukee both 7/25 & 7/26.

 

[epifanatic]

I grew up in the flight path of Offutt AFB here in Omaha and being a huge aviation buff, would love watching all of the planes flying in for the air show every year. I can remember a RAF Vulcan passing over the house one year at about a thousand feet, extremely cool!! The coolest one of all was a SR71 Blackbird that flew directly over the house. You could always tell when the vintage warbirds were scheduled to appear, the sound of a P-51 or Hellcat flying over was just awsome! Those B-17's and 24's really rattled the windows.

 

[dread31]

My father was a Navy aircraft mechanic during WW2. He took me to very airshow that came around, and told me all kinds of stories about F4Us, SBDs, Hellcats, Wildcats, Avengers, etc. etc.

I live in Hampton Roads area of Virginia, now. We have lots of airshows here, and everytime I see those old birds I think of Dad. I truly do miss him.

Dave

 

[Eagle1]

Cool story!

Years ago I paid for a "walk through" tour of a B-17 at nearby Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie, MN. Answering questions inside was a crew member who had flown during WWII in a similar craft. Talk about a cool experience (for me) talking to him about his impressions.

I was sitting on my patio last Sunday evening with a friend when I heard a similar sound (yet only one engine) and I immediately said out loud "Warbird". My ear is tuned to anything prop driven that's bigger than a Cessna or a Piper. Sure enough a few seconds later an AT-6 Texan flew overhead around 1000 feet.

The weekend after EAA at Oshkosh there's usually a good Air Show at Holman Field in downtown St Paul, MN. This might be a good year for me to check it out in person . . .

I live about 2 miles from the So. St. Paul airport, home of the CAF southern wing, and a B-25, 3 or 4 T-6's and a PBY. Almost every weekend the T-6's are flying singlely or in formation and will fly right over my house. Several times a month the B-25 is up flying and will come roaring over at about 500' shaking the windows. Truely a sight in flight. Before it suffered major damage during a wind storm the PBY would fly over the neighborhood, it just floated in the air. Before aviation fuel cost a gold brick, every weekend was an airshow event near or over my house. Not so now. One of my favorite fighters is the P-51, nothing sweeter to the ears than the pop, pop, pop as they throttle back during landing. When I was in my young teens and a member of Civil Air Patrol a fellow cadet and I managed to fanagle a free ride during a test flight on a B-26 that was being converted for business use. The flight lasted about 20 min. but seemed like 20 sec. flying over the Twin Cities. We were the envy of the squadron when word got out. OOH the memories and everytime the B-25 flies over my hair still stands up on the back of my neck!

1koolcat: I don't know if they still have the show at Holman Field anymore. I use to attend every year, but I don't think they had one last year or the year before. Fuel costs and insurance may have been the cause. I'll check schedules to see if it will happen and let you know.

 

[1koolcat]

1koolcat: I don't know if they still have the show at Holman Field anymore. I use to attend every year, but I don't think they had one last year or the year before. Fuel costs and insurance may have been the cause. I'll check schedules to see if it will happen and let you know.

Eagle1 - I saw ads in the Sunday paper recently touting the Oshkosh Show and the "Wings of Freedom Tour" event in the Twin Cities:

7/15 - 7/17 St. Paul, MN (B-17, B-24 & P-51)
Airport: Downtown Airport/Holman Field
Location: City Ramp on North end of field
-
7/17 - 7/20 Minneapolis, MN (B-17, B-24 & P-51)
Airport: Anoka County-Blaine Airport
Location: Golden Wings Museum

More info at www.cfdn.org

Cheers!

 

[Sandy G]

Saw a privately-owned P-51 at the Warbirds Over Hickory show several yrs ago...It was Somebody's Baby...An' was OBVIOUSLY very well loved...Even the insides of the wheelwells were polished & spotless..Imagine havin' a P-51 as yr own Private plane...Most people "make do" w/Cessnas or Pipers or Beechcrafts...But YOU have a P-51....Wow...A purely "hedonistic" device, you can't take anyone else up w/you, can't haul anything, either, all you can really do is go up & bore holes in the sky, & terrorize yr neighbors...Totally impractical, & ridiculously expensive. I love it...(grin)

 

[Eagle1]

Eagle1 - I saw ads in the Sunday paper recently touting the Oshkosh Show and the "Wings of Freedom Tour" event in the Twin Cities:

7/15 - 7/17 St. Paul, MN (B-17, B-24 & P-51)
Airport: Downtown Airport/Holman Field
Location: City Ramp on North end of field
-
7/17 - 7/20 Minneapolis, MN (B-17, B-24 & P-51)
Airport: Anoka County-Blaine Airport
Location: Golden Wings Museum

More info at www.cfdn.org

Cheers!

Damn, missed it by that much. :tears:

 

[1koolcat]

Doh! I was so fixated on other events in July that I completely missed it too.

Crumbs. :tears:

 

[pioneervato]

My father-in-law's older brother (84) was a tail gunner in WWII. B-17 as I recall. I'm not sure how many missions he flew but he survived them all.

 

[LBPete]

I read somewhere that US bomber crews stationed in Britain in 1943 had a higher mortality rate than Japanese kamikaze pilots. Japan had more pilots than planes so about 50% of them made it through the war. The bomber crew that year had better than a 60% mortality rate. That is just staggering. It took balls the size of watermelons to get in that plane mission after mission.

For the most part these guys were small stature. I've seen WWII era bomber crew uniforms in museums. They look like kids cloths. It made sense to have small guys, the lighter the crew, the larger the payload.

Here's an old thread on B-17 flyby in Long Beach. I'll see if I can dig up the pictures.

- Pete

 

[VinylHanger]

Nothin' can beat the sound of big radials...no matter if two or four. Takeoff power? Yum! At cruise with 'em synced up just right? Sublime. Shameless web plug: drop by my brother-in-law's site www.maxair2air.com. This week's photo essay is on B-17 "Nine-O-Nine"...a beautiful bird. I also enjoyed his essay on the Cessna T-50 "Bobcat"...don't see those little twins every day. He's certainly an artist with that Nikon.

Shameless plug link much appreciated. Those are incredible pictures. I kept thinking "That one would be a great desktop, no that one, oh, here's one". Cool stuff, he is an artist for sure.

 

[phaedrus]

A few years ago I got a ride in Aluminum Overcast, the EAA sponsored (I think) B-17. Amazing experience, but two things stuck with me:

(1) That thing is so loud I am amazed any of the aircrews had any hearing left at all. The resonances in the fuselage were literally vibrating my fillings.

(2) Getting in and out of the thing required major contortions. I'm not that big (5'11") but I could barely squeeze through the hatch. As I was going through, I was sitting there thinking, "How could anybody bail out of this thing in an emergency?"

I think I remember seeing a statistic that the only group that had a higher mortality rate than the 8th Air Force were the German U-boat crews. Those aircrews had major cojones. Really have to admire them.

David

 

[ranch 22b]

My dad flew B-24's with the 8th out of England. He was 6'3", though on the thin size. He took his cowboy boots everywhere he went after he left San Antonio. Yeah, they called him "Tex". Thank goodness he didn't get over there until 1944. Still, he said the ME 262's were big time scary.

 

[ehoove]

They are impressive to see fly! We had one lumber across the sky over our golf course, and it held up play all over the course as it passed overhead. I swear it looked like it had to fall out of the sky it was moving so slow, or so it seemed. Awe inspiring event!
Regards,
Jim

 

[screenersam]

THIS puppy flew over the airport where I work this Spring.
B-25 Mitchell.
sweet.

 

[soundweasel]

+1 I'm sure after a few missions all of them expected not to return from the next one. Just can't imagine how that would feel. A heartfelt thanks to him and his buddies. :thmbsp:

+1. Every time they took off on a mission they knew the odds for a safe return were against them, but they always went. :thmbsp:

 

[Gunner]

A few years ago a co-worker of mine, a former B-17 radioman, got us a ride in one from Adrian, Michigan to Toledo, Ohio, about a 45 minute trip. I don't remember the name of the plane but the pilot was called "Mad Dog." What a gas. He did some low level passes over the Adrian field on the way out. I was standing with my head at the sunroof type opening, looking back, great gut-tightener as he did power turns at the ends of the field. Coming into Toledo I was in the plexiglass nose and did an imaginary bomb run on a competing TV station. Can't imagine going to war in one of those. When I went to Viet Nam, we had a TWA Ambassador flight with two movies and lots of meals. Huge respect for those guys. I think they were the greatest generation.

 

[Sam Cogley]

One of my strangest airplane incidents occurred when I was living in Columbia, MO (this happened in 2006, I think). For many years, the city airport was located on the north side of town, just off I-44. The site is now a park. One dreary and very overcast day with a low cloud cover, I heard a loud droning sound, looked up, and saw a DC-3 drop under the cloud deck - almost like it was looking for the airport. Shortly thereafter it did a slow turn and climbed back into the clouds. The whole incident was rather surreal.

 

[devnull]

Thanks to everyone for all the anecdotes! Some interesting stories and various links there.

I saw the same plane yesterday, I was on East washington and thought the thing was going to smash me flat! Very awesome. I have been seeing alot of jets lately. I was fortunate enough to catch the blue angels practicing near janesville on my way back into town a few weeks back too!

God that thing is huge. it was VERY low and very intimidating.

That was a cool site, though, wasn't it! Caught me complete off guard. I was quite literally awestruck when I saw it coming and I realized what it was. My jaw must have hit the ground!

Regarding some of the commentary regarding the high mortality rates of the 8th AF, I recall reading about that at one point or another. IIRC, one of the major factors in that was in '43 the fighter escorts with the necessary range weren't in service yet, the first of those being the P-47 Thunderbolts. The German planes would wait just outside the range limit of the fighter escorts assigned to the bombers, and once the Allied fighters turned for home, the bombers were left to fend for themselves.

Those were some brave men flying those planes.

John