B-17 Bombardier

Cool. You may have met/seen my sister Shirley. Smaller blonde lady, probably greeting people and helping with sales. She was with the tour until yesterday.

On this tour she was crewing on Maid in the Shade, but she's crewed on Sentimental Journey many times.
 

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I rode in Madras Maiden before they renamed her, one of the coolest experiences ever.
 
Have that on the bucket list. Worked the flight line for EAA b17 tour.
 
I was in line for a B17 ride at Frederick MD, and the pilot called it a day before I reached the front of the line, big disappointment, but still memorable, just watching.

The pilot flying was a WW 2 veteran, had bombed Germany. Each landing was 3 point, and difficult to tell when the wheels touched from just hundreds of yards away. The tailwheel was lifted to save wear. He quit for the day, simply because he was tired! I talked with the pilot after he exited the B 17, and found out that he was retiring from flying the big iron, I believe he said he was in his 80's? and was quitting while he was still making good landings (I had complimented his landings).

A pilot who used good judgement for all his flying career.
 
My wife and I went up Thursday morning. Unfortunately, there was only one seat up front left, which my wife graciously let me take, but she said the ride in the back was amazing as well. Truly an incredible experience.
 
Lndwarrior said:
Cool. You may have met/seen my sister Shirley. Smaller blonde lady, probably greeting people and helping with sales. She was with the tour until yesterday.

On this tour she was crewing on Maid in the Shade, but she's crewed on Sentimental Journey many times.
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I saw her there on Thursday. Tell her thank you to her and all of her colleagues. So glad that folks are willing to make the effort to keep these pieces of history alive.
 
Dave Theisen said:
I saw her there on Thursday. Tell her thank you to her and all of her colleagues. So glad that folks are willing to make the effort to keep these pieces of history alive.
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The people on the tour not only donate their time but they pay for all their expenses - hotels, food, pretty much everything. It's a lot of money when you're doing it for 6 weeks at a time. But she loves it and it's worth it to her.
 
My mom was born in Berkeley in 1943. My grandfather (arrow pointing to him) was the pilot and got to name the plane.

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On the back of the picture, it notes: "Crew registers terror when target is announced (Verona -158 heavy flak guns), Togglier Kirk passes out on ground, Ball turret gunner Leo Biga fans him with his hat"
 
I'm trying to wrap my head around a bunch of guys laughing and joking around about making a bombing run in WW2 on a heavily defended target, where these days people worry about things that are completely trivial. Courage is off the scale.
 
Local one based at FFZ.


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Albany Tom said:
I'm trying to wrap my head around a bunch of guys laughing and joking around about making a bombing run in WW2 on a heavily defended target, where these days people worry about things that are completely trivial. Courage is off the scale.
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Ah, it’s probably more a coping mechanism than anything. People today aren’t fundamentally different but as the saying goes - easy times make for weak men. A few missions in those guys were getting a lot tougher, and most of their families had just survived the Great Depression. The funny thing is, I think my mom passed some of that mindset down to me. My grandfather - her dad - was born in 1900 and she was his last offspring and I was born when she was 31, so I’m the grandson of a depression-era father and I am convinced I think differently about some things because of that generational knowledge transfer.
 
Love the fact that people write things like this on thr FFZ one
 

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Great shots, I have a Co-worker that sat in a Spitfire last year. He's a larger man but said for him it was "roomy". This video was great, thanks for sharing
 
Albany Tom said:
I'm trying to wrap my head around a bunch of guys laughing and joking around about making a bombing run in WW2 on a heavily defended target, where these days people worry about things that are completely trivial. Courage is off the scale.
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Humor is a very natural reaction when getting ready to do scary stuff, especially in a small, tight knit group of young men.

There's a great story in a book about the Prince's Gate hostage rescue in 1980. The SAS troop that made the assault prepositioned in the attic of the building next door to the Iranian Embassy where the hostages where being held. They were there for several days prior to the assault. When the word came to go, they were to climb out on the roof, move next door, and rappel down onto the balconies to enter the embassy.
During that time, they had an intelligence specialist assigned to help them prepare. He was a smart guy but had zero operational background. One of the SAS guys was sick and unable to participate.
As a joke, they told the intel analyst that he had to take the sick guy's place. They began giving him lessons in how to rappel and operate a weapon. This went on until the order came to stand by for the assault. They put a rappel harness on the terrified guy and took him out on the roof, before bursting out laughing. Moments later they did this:

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Excellent point, but I'd take the category "terrorists with rifles" over "Germans with anti-aircraft cannon" 10 out of 10 times in the real world version of Jeopardy.
 
Scrabo said:
Love the fact that people write things like this on thr FFZ one
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Earl Morrow, Age 93. Pilot way back when & revisited his old warplane, if I'm reading that right.
 
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