B-24 & B-17 - Incredible Day!

orca8589

orca8589

Joined
Jan 27, 2007
Messages
6,518
These guys flew over the house today - http://www.collingsfoundation.org/tour_b-24j.htm

B-24 Liberator flew literally right over our apartment today, twice. B-17 Super Fortress flew over twice, too, a few hundred yards west. Then at 6:15 this evening, a B-25 Mitchell flew over as well.

I've seen almost all of the old warbirds in flight, but since this is the last flying B-24, I didn't think I'd ever get to see her, without traveling to another part of the country. Got to tell my son the stories my grandmother remembered hearing from her brothers and my grandfather, from the war.

We're moving Friday (packing all day today - the reason for the late post here) so we didn't go anywhere for the holiday this time. Seeing those old birds sure made our whole day here. Giant thumbs up :thumbup: to the Collings Foundation!

And last - A hearty THANK YOU to all you folks in uniform who serve our country & communities!

thx - cpr
 
Amazing experience, seeing the big old planes, especially flying. I used to go to the Intrepid in New York, where they had a fleet of old aircraft on deck, including an SR-71.

But the wildest was one parade on Fifth Avenue, with everyone marching north, suddenly a big plane, flying south passed low overhead: a B-1 bomber. Never even saw many pictures of that before. The crowd held its collective breath. :)
 
I saw a B-1B fly overhead here once. Holy hell that thing was loud. There's an AFB in town here, so we're used to jets flying overhead all the time (mostly A-10s, some F-16s, lately there's been Tornados and Eurofighters training here), but the B-1B was something else. We had some WWII planes flying overhead a couple years back too. Pretty cool stuff.
 
The old warbirds are quite a sight! I live just a few miles from the Yankee AIr Force and Museum. They have a couple of dozen warbirds -- from WW2, Korea & Vietnam -- on display. They also have a flying B-17 in which they give rides (for a fee to help the museum & restorations). I bought a ride a couple of years ago as a treat for a business partner and myself... an awesome ride. One of the best experiences of a lifetime. :D Very cool!

AJ
 
I have walked through that B-24 in static displays a couple of times.

I have flown in that B-17, the "Nine-O-Nine." We flew from Brainerd airport in Hartford to Tweed in New Haven in formation with the Liberator and a Piper Saratoga that had flown me from New Haven to Hartford. It's a B-17G - note the chin turret. I had the navigator's seat and, after takeoff, walked underneath the pilots' seats into the nose turret, then I went into the top turret and walked the catwalk through the bomb bay to get back to the waist gunners' positions. You couldn't go into the belly turret (I can't fit in one anyway) or the tail position. I was riding in the nose as we did flybys blowing smoke off the four big engines over Tweed-New Haven. We were pulling some G's and it became hard to stand on the canted deck. What a ride! I don't remember the exact year but it was in the mid-1990's and both planes were appearing in Hartford and then New Haven for static shows.

Oh - a minor point! The B-17 is the Flying Fortress, so called because of its legendary ability to take heavy damage and keep flying. The Super Fortress is the B-29; an example being the Enola Gay. Note the similarity in the strong ridge leading to the "Roman nose" tails in both.
 
Last edited:
Last week my brother and I flew in the B-17. One of our fellow passengers had flown 35 combat missions in the B-17, and had had to bail out of the nose ball when their engines caught on fire, and then evade capture for two weeks before getting back to friendly lines. After a week in rest camp he was back in the air.
 
The Jones Beach Airshow happened here this weekend. Got to climb around a B-17 at the American Airpower Museum. Got to climb into the B-24 and one of the two airworthy Avro Lancaster (filming the redux of Dambusters right now) last Memorial Day weekend.

Got to see a bunch of nice military ordnance in flight this weekend:

Grumman Avenger
Republic P-47
B-17
Mustang
F4U Corsair
PAVEHawk
C-130 Hercs
The Blue Angels

AND...

F-22 Raptor (oh yeah)
 
mycroftt said:
Oh - a minor point! The B-17 is the Flying Fortress, so called because of its legendary ability to take heavy damage and keep flying. The Super Fortress is the B-29; an example being the Enola Gay. Note the similarity in the strong ridge leading to the "Roman nose" tails in both.
Click to expand...

(edits mine) Thanks for the correction. I was thinking the Superfortress was the B-17 :foot: , and the Stratofortress was the B-29. Stratofortress was the B-52; forgot that little detail until I saw your note.

And I should know the Stratofortress too; one of them "sank" us during a N.A.T.O. exercise in 1986. I was one of only about a dozen people that saw them coming at us, she came over at only about 150' altitude. My ears rang for days after that. Embarrassing enough that she got as close as she did, but if we had been the flagship at the time, well . . . let's just say there would have been some beheadings in C.I.C. over that one.

Also, thanks for the stories, all. My wife has been nudging me to go on one of those fly-alongs; I need to get off my hiney and just go do it.

thx - cpr
 
Speaking to people who have ridden in both - contrary to what you might think, based on the shape of the airframes, the B-24 supposedly is a heck of a lot smoother ride. The B-17 isn't one for the airsick-prone.
 
What a treat.

We have several air shows here in San Diego and I've been lucky enough to see a B-17 flying in as well as a B-2 Stealth Bomber in flight. Of the many WWII era planes I've seen in flight, the B-17 was the most majestic.

I also have attended what used to be an annual historic air show at a local air field. There I was able to walk through (if you can call it that) the inside of both the B-24 and B-17. Awe inspiring planes but oh so cramped inside.

To add a bit to mycroftt's post: one reputed reason that the B-17 was able to take more damage than the B-24 was because it used more electrical systems (skinny wires) and relied less on hydraulics (fat lines). Hydraulic tubes were easier to damage and would bleed out rendering their systems inoperative.
 
A friend has fleet of DC4s he uses to fly fuel and supplies into remote Indian and Eskimo villages. I have hooped aboard a few times.The last one I flew on was used in the Berlin Air Lift. The feeling flying in one of these birds
is something I will never forget.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top