A few weeks ago the B-17 Sentimental Journey was visiting Bellingham WA. I took a few photo's. Hope you enjoy.

The graceful lines of a B-17 are on display in this shot.
[url][/url]

All buisness.
[url][/url]

This is my dad on the left who is 93 (really) talking to a WWII veteran who had come to see the B-17. The veteran seated on the right was a waist gunner on B-17 who flew 40 missions over Europe and Africa at age 20. These guys are getting rare these days.
[url][/url]

Another pretty shot of B-17 I enhanced a bit.
[url][/url]

I love listening to the people that experienced flying in those old planes during WW11. I went down to see that B17 in Yakima three weeks ago. It was at the Mccallester museum. I sat on a bench for about two hours listening to an old B17 crewman.

Great pictures whynotfly! Thanks for sharing them.

A guy in my EAA chapter that is working on the 701 project with us, is a WWII vet. He was based in the U.K. He repaired B-17's after they came back from missions over Germany. He says that at first they were real picky about fixing bullet holes and flak damage. The inspectors wanted the planes to look brand new and perfect. After a couple months though, they were riveting flattened tin cans on the holes and not even painting them! One airplane had a charmed life for it's first few missions. Never got even one hole in it! Then one mission it received some battle damage. When he and his fellow mechanics went in to fix the holes they found that a significant portion of the structure, where you had to remove access panels to get in, was held together with clecos! Oooops! A little hasty at the factory he guessed!

I was at the airport in Lewiston, ID, on the 4th of July, getting ready to test fly my plane after having some work done. I did my runup at the hold short line, then called the tower telling them I was ready to take off. The response was "Hold short runway 29 for B-17 on final".

I was still trying to make sense of how the controller managed to slur Bonanza or Beech or something to make it sound like 'B-17' when that same silver bird as in the photos lumbered across the threshold and touched down less than 100 ft. in front of me. So, after I got back from checking my plane out, I paid 5 bucks to crawl through it. It's truly a fascinating machine!

I think this is the same B-17 I saw at Boise while I was waiting to board my commercial flight this last July.

I saw Sentimental Journey at Chico (KCIC) this past weekend, in fact got to share some airspace with Boeing 9323Z over town on my way out of Dodge. It was somewhat of a homecoming....Sentimental Journey spent time in Chico as a tanker for Aero Union at one point after the war and prior to the CAF acquisition. Naturally my ^#%#*@ camera battery had decided to punch out on me on the trip up.

Flynengr

When I arrived at Bellingham in my C-172 I was asked by the tower on downwind if I wanted to make a short approach now, or continue my downwind and follow a B-17 on a long final. Duh...? "Tower, yea uh...I'll just follow the B-17". Anyway, I swung in behind the B-17 and pretended I was returning from a mission.

In 1988 or close to that time (a while ago), I was lucky enough to be able to go for a nice ride in a vintage B-17F. A local friend of my dad's had just purchased a stripped down model of a B-17. I told my dad to do anything to get us up for a ride. Speed forward..... and I found myself driving down to Boeing field to go up in a B-17 with just my dad and his friend "Bobby Richardson". Neither one of them had a rating in a B-17, although my dad had a ton of hours in 4 engine planes like the DC-6 and Boeing Strato Cruiser. I wasn't about to ask them if they really new how to fly this thing. The three of us took off under a sunny sky heading north over Elliott bay and flew out over the Olympic penisula for about a 90 minute flight buzzing a friend of the owner that had a grass strip over the penisula. I got to sit up front for a bit and handle the controls. Very heavy controls. And a very noisy airplane. I wasn't complaining .
Below are a couple of photo's from about 20 years ago.


This is when Seattle still had the "Kingdome". Just leaving Boeing Field. Yes, those engines were loud.
[url][/url]

Thats me (younger) reminding myself that I am really in one of the most famous airplanes ever built.
[url][/url]

A great view out the nose, somewhere over the Olympic penisula.
[url][/url]