I was working at my desk during a beautiful day yesterday and heard the distinctive sound of big round engines.

Looking out the window I see a big four engine taildragger flying over my house on the way to KBFI.



Liberty Belle B-17

My Dad was a tail gunner on one of those babys in WWII. Had to bail out of it too.
Great photo!

Great photo!

Would like to take credit for it, but since there are no clouds in the sky it obviously is not Seattle.

I grabbed it off the Liberty Belle website.

She was down here in Medford OR before she flew up there. Never flew close enough for me to even bother getting the camera out...The one time I did see her close I didn't even have the camera with me but sure did sound wonderful flying over the valley..

Brian.

Flew a G model in the mid 80's. Not much of a big deal being a tail dragger... but what my instructor showed me first thing was how slow it was to roll.
We flew at 75 feet agl in a formation of three B17's. When you get a wing down... and terrain is coming up, you better get with it. Roll rate is very very slow. And on top of that it is a very noisy bird inflight. It was fun to land though... and people always came out to the airport to look at it. Old guys, with a tear in their eye... remembering way back when.
Came out of the Grand Canyon at Desert View tower on one ferry trip.... startled the heck out of the tourists up on the tower as they were not expecting a silver and red bomber below the rim. Bet they took home some photos to impress the neighbors with in Japan.

If you'd like to see another pic of Liberty Belle, just go to my photo gallery (next to last pic) - she's the big bird sitting on the ramp behind my Cherokee 180. They keep her at Albuquerque's Double Eagle II airport (KAEG) - my home field - in the winter for annual upkeep. Apparently the Liberty Belle Foundation (owners) fly her a lot during the warmer months, touring around the USA, selling rides on her. It's not a cheap ride at over four hundred bucks per. The maintenance cost on those four big radials and a 65+ year old airframe has got to be a killer!