B-17 Flying Fortress

B-17 Take-off and Landing (Sentimental Journey)

*   *   *

By AAABTonto:

This past Friday night I had just awoke (as many of you know I work 3rd shift) and I was evaluating what I was going to accomplish with my extended holiday weekend when the phone rang. Upon answering I discovered it was my good friend, Neal. Neal and I used to race go-karts together and have been friends since sometime in 1985 when we met at a karting event. We often traveled together to share racing expenses and new each other for several years before we discovered that, in addition to being fellow karting enthusiasts, we were both amateur WWII airplane historian/fanatics and enjoyed constructing scale models of that era’s vintage war-birds.

Neal is also very mechanically inclined person, building go-kart engines, repairing his own farm machinery and restoring cars. On visit to Arizona to see his brother in the late 80’s he visited the then “Confederate Air Force” whose Arizona wing operated out of Phoenix. He decided to join the group and when he would visit his brother there, he would spend his days helping restore authentic WWII aircraft while his brother was at work. Neal figured if he could build plastic replicas of aircraft, why not work on reconstructing the real thing. He excelled at this and was so effective that group awarded Neal with the opportunity to be a crewman with the touring B-17 bomber, “Sentimental Journey’–an honor that normally took a minimum of two years to earn. Neal was so thrilled by this that he also began to take flying lessons.

So in mid May of 1993 Neal drove from Ohio to my house here in Indianapolis and I drove him to the airport. He boarded his scheduled flight to Kansas City where he would meet up with the touring bomber. His part of the tour was about two weeks in length and they would hop-scotch their way back across the Midwest going from airshow to airshow until his final destination in Marion, Indiana, where I would pick him up.

Sentimental Journey

Now Neal is a character, he is one of those guys that just grows on you and you can’t help but like his dry sense of humor and common sense manner. He was well liked by his fellow crewman, who knew that Neal had taken up flying lessons and the pilot had decided that Neal was worthy of one more reward. On the next to last leg of the tour, which flew from Burlington, Iowa to Columbus, Indiana, Neal was allowed to fly copilot! It was the thrill of a lifetime and privilege that Neal cherishes to this day.

The captain even filled out Neal’s first flight log book entry with the proper information to authenticate his accomplishment. This turned out to be a humorous thing when Neal returned to Ohio to continue his flying lessons. While sitting on the runway in a tiny Cessna and about to take his first actual “flight lesson” (after completing ground school), his instructor asked Neal for his log book so he could show him how to fill it out correctly. Upon opening it he found the first already completed as co-pilot time behind the yoke of a four engine WWII bomber–his instructor almost fell out of the plane!

Neal had called me this past Friday night to tell that that had all been 20 years ago … amazing how time flies–pardon the pun.

Neal went on to earn his wings and became a licensed single engine pilot. Not long after that Sard and I visited him at his farm. Sard’s grandfather was a flight engineer on a B-17 and was shot down over Memmingen, Germany. Sard wrote an article about it, which is posted at TRP:

Memorial Day Tribute: My Granddad

Neal took us down to his local airstrip where he treated us to an aerial tour of western Ohio (in a Cessna) and I got fly as co-pilot. It wasn’t my first time in the right hand seat–I have about 6 to 8 hours of right-seat time in single engine planes, but I never took any formal lessons. I love flying, though; there is just something inexplicably invigorating about flying smaller propeller driven aircraft. It is vastly different than a ride in a jet airliner. The ground is closer and you can feel the the things the plane is doing to negotiate the atmosphere. You see the earth below in a whole new perspective that, for me anyway, puts life into its proper scale.

The Confederate Air Force is now called the “Commemorative Ar Force” and I imagine that most of the WWII veterans that took such a liking to Neal have passed on; but their stories and the memories of their accomplishments should never be forgotten. They were ordinary people, who did extraordinary things because they had to–they were proud to do so and yet humble. War veterans rarely speak of their experiences and when they do it is time to shut up and listen.

Modern Marvels, S00E83 ,Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, Full Episode

*   *   *

I will never stop fighting to keep what they fought so valiantly for alive. I will always look up to them and as long as I live I will praise them for their bravery and selflessness. We could really use some bravery and selflessness in our government today. God bless America and I wish you all a blessed Memorial day.

Great Planes B-17

*   *   *

Battle Stations: B17 flying fortress

*   *   *