BusTalk

roymanning2000 · Age: 75 Joined: 01 Aug 2007 Posts: 198

Just a few minutes ago, I heard an unusual (but familiar) sound of an airplane going over our building. Unusual because it wasn't a jet but the sound of a piston engine plane. Looking out my office window, I saw a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the World War II bomber, fly past.

I work for a company whose headquarters is only a few miles from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the National Museum of the U. S. Air Force. So, planes flying over aren't that unusual. But this one was special.

Don't know where it's from or where it's going. But, it was pretty neat to see that plane, between 65 and 70 years old, cruise by.

Roy

timecruncher · Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:24 am Post subject:

Maybe 15 years ago I had a charter to the Indianapolis 500. There were a few no shows in the group and I was offered one of the spare tickets, a bleacher seat in the first turn. Part of the pre-race festivities was a B-17 flyover with a fighter escort (piston-powered all, but no, I don't know my WWII fighter designations). Awesome!

After that, the 150-year old Jim Nabors sang the Hoosier anthem and we got down to some amazing racing.

The group was being treated to the big race by an international manufacturer whose main office was pretty much across the street from the main entrance to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We got the police escort treatment right up to the gate and parked in their lot nearby.

Had a lot of fun with those charters sometimes...

timecruncher

Rick · Joined: 08 May 2008 Posts: 14

Saw one last summer when I went out to buy groceries. There are a couple that fly around the country and stop at various airports over the course of the year. You can pay a couple hundred and get a ride, or pay a few bucks and walk through.

I think there's a B-17 and a B-24 at Westchester County Airport this week.

RailBus63 · Moderator Joined: 16 Apr 2007 Posts: 1063

Took the family a few years ago to a vintage airplane show in Geneseo, New York, south of Rochester, and a B-17 was the star performer in the show along with other various WWII-era warbirds. The sound of those four piston engines is something else - I can only imagine what it must have been like to stand alongside those airfields in England and watch wave after wave of those bombers take off.

shortlineMCI · Age: 54 Joined: 07 May 2007 Posts: 241

Dieseljim · Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 1:06 pm Post subject: Different Sight in the Sky

The fighter escort with the B17 would most likely be North American P51 Mustangs. The Mustang is powered by a Packard built Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 engine and the radiator is located under the belly just behind the wing. It is said that there are about 300 of them still flying, some of them souped up racers that can break 500 mph when flying all out. At least one P38 Lightning is still flyable though I have yet to see it. In July, I caught glimpses of the air show and saw a Mustang flying formation with an F15 Strike Eagle jet, a formation of three F4U Corsairs, a TBM Avenger and the Curtiss Helldiver. One B25 Mitchell made it to the show. This year, the B17 did not fly in the air show because of funding reasons. The B17 now based at Geneseo is the Movie "Memphis Bell", which has taken the place of the Fuddy Duddy. The airplane may look big on the outside, but, Having been inside one on one occasion, I can see how cramped the crews must have been during a mission, the two waist gunners especially. When passing from one end of the aircraft to the other, one would have to really watch it on that narrow catwalk over the bomb bay, especially when the doors were open. The catwalk is only about 6 to 9 inches wide, not much room for error when at high altitude and with open bay doors. The B17 at Wright Patterson is the one named Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby.

Rick · Joined: 08 May 2008 Posts: 14

Saw a B-17 in the skies over central CT yesterday on the way home - plane is it Oxford Airport this week with another bomber, a B-25 or a B-24, and a P-51.