wrote in
:

I coulda gone in a Mustang years ago for about 50 bucks for an hour!
Seemed expensive at the time.


NOOOOO!!!!

I climbed all over this one, took a million pictures and some video,
but missed the ride:

http://www.b17.org/

Next time it's in Georgetown I'm going. Cost be damned.

I couldn't quite grasp that a human being actually FIT in the ball
turret. I sure couldn't have. I took a long stare out it's view plate.

The only one I've been in is the EAA's aluminum overcast and at the time
it had no turrets at all. I think they had just gotten it. It was in at
the place i was working at the time because we had a Wright shop.
(couple of wright powered DC3s)

There's a decent book about flying B-17s in WWII I will mention he
"Bloody Skies A 15th AAF B-17 Combat Crew: How They Lived and Died",
Melvin McGuire and Robert Hadley. This book really brought to life my
tour of the fortress. They supply some of the post combat reports in
facsimile. The reproductions aren't very good but I found them really
interesting, especially since I've never been in the military.
There're all kinds of good stories in the book. One of the most
riveting is a detailed account of a raid in which an entire squadron
McGuire had just been assigned to was wiped out in a single day (the
day McGuire arrived -- thus he escaped and was a member of the only
crew left in the squadron). In the space from 1046 to 1053 hours
during the mission a massive German fighter force destroyed his
squadron and got some other planes as well.

The Germans came in flying in American fighter formation and weren't
recognized until they were only 200 yards out -- they came in firing
rockets, cannons, and of course machine guns. Three of the formation
went down after the first pass alone.

Seven minutes -- seventy guys.


I know. It's just incredible, the whole thing.

Bertie