|
 |
Fortress Fever At the controls of a rare B-17 Flying Fortress June 13, 1998. Another red-letter day. VFA-13 squadron member Zhredder and I had the opportunity to each briefly take the helm of a We had booked the flight a couple of weeks earlier, with the Collings Foundation as soon as we heard the venerable old girl "Nine-O-Nine" was coming to Seattle. Both of us opted to pay extra for stick time and arranged to be on the same flight. My family sacrificed a usual Saturday morning sleep-in to ingress at 0530 on the long drive from Vancouver, BC down to our sister city in the Pacific Northwest. The weather looked great, with scattered clouds and lots of sun. But the further south we drove, the thicker the cloud cover became. As we entered Seattle, it even began to rain. I wondered whether the mission would be scrubbed on account of weather. We arrived at Boeing Field at 0800, knowing that the cloud cover was too low to fly according to schedule. Our coordinator told us all to come back at noon, as better weather was expected. Gentlemen, we have a mission Coming back to Boeing Field at noon, the weather had improved. The cloud ceiling had risen from 1500 feet to an acceptable 3000, and the mission was on. As we waited to board the aircraft some sunshine even broke through. Following an FAA briefing, the pilots and a crew of seven boarded the B-17G "Nine-O-Nine," a reference to the serial number of the aircraft. It is one of only 10 that are still flying, and makes stops at various cities throughout the USA to give people a chance to experience what hundreds of thousands of brave young men went through in their efforts to end conflict. Zhredder and I were ready for the flight of our lives. Sitting across from me as we strapped in for takeoff at various positions on the floor was a gentleman who flew combat as a B-17 navigator. Charles was based with the 15th Air Force out of Italy in 1944-45, and flew a number of additional B-17 missions during the Korean War. I could tell that he was reliving some great memories. You could see it in his eyes as the wonderful rumble of those four 1200hp turbocharged Wright Cyclone engines roared to life. I pumped him for information as we waited for engines to warm up. They sounded beautiful. The vibration of the plane, the throaty roar of the engines, and the smell of exhaust all combined to give me a sense of excitement that I've rarely experienced. The roar was loud, though. It was difficult hearing anyone unless they yelled directly into your ear. Soon we were on our takeoff roll, then off the ground. With a whir and thud, the landing gear retracted. We were given the sign that we were free to roam the aircraft.
Now the fun really started. We looked through the waist gun windows. Guns were unmovable, but it was nostalgic to think about the fear and tension that the waist gunners must have felt as flak burst around them and they desperately targeted the fighter aircraft swooping around them. The waist was statistically the most deadly position on combat missions. I stuck my head out into the slipstream through the opening above the radio operator's position. You could look around in every direction, but the rear in particular gave a great view of the aircraft tail and the city behind us. When this rear-view photo above was taken a few more minutes into the flight, Zhredder was at the helm, piloting the aircraft in a series of gentle turns. A breathtaking scene I made my way forward from the radio operator's position along the narrow catwalk in the bomb bay. Less than a foot wide, with just a waist-level rope on each side, a fall would put you on the bomb bay doors, which normally will open with only 60lbs of weight. In the Nine-O-Nine the bay doors were covered with plywood, probably to avoid this kind of accident. I imagined the many brave young men who leaned out over that rope in an effort to free stuck bombs (a common occurance) some 25,000 feet above the earth, the doors open below them, breathing bottled oxygen, with an icy 40-degree-below-zero wind shrieking into the aircraft.
I got to the Navigator's station and found my friend Charles photographing the place that he had occupied so many times as a young man. Just then an excited cry rang out from one of the crew. Out the starboard window, the B-24 Liberator accompanying us was flying in close formation with the skyscrapers of Seattle in the background. The site of the two of us soaring past the modern buildings was breathtaking. I was so mesmerized that I almost forgot to videotape the scene. When I finally thought of it I forgot to change the exposure setting from internal lighting to external, overexposing the footage. As we passed the Seattle Space Needle on the North end of downtown the B-24 peeled off to starboard and disappeared into the distance. It was an unforgettable moment, and one I'll treasure for years.
Bombardier to Pilot I moved down into the nose bubble. There was the Norden bomb sight which I'm so familiar with from hundreds of hours flying a B-17 in Warbirds and Air Warrior. It looked remarkably familiar. An old tan-colored chair stood behind the sight (similar to the one in the radio room). To the left are the three controls that the bombardier would use to adjust throttle and what looked like propellor pitch during the bomb run. I'm not sure how he controlled ailerons or rudder. On the right is a unit with an odd handle and a number of buttons positioned within thumb reach. I believe this is used to control the chin turret. There was so much to discover my brain was way behind my heart. Below the Bombardier's nose bubble is the chin turret, with two machine guns mounted on a swivel mechanism. I could see the guns, but could not figure out how they were fired or aimed. The G model of B-17 introduced two cheek guns on either side of the nose bubble, and even though the Nine-O-Nine has them I didn't even notice them from inside the aircraft, and noticed no controls for operating them. We continued to fly North, with some gentle turns to right and left over the Puget Sound islands. Soon I got word that it was my turn in the copilot's seat. Until this point, I hadn't even realized that Zhredder was at the helm. I wanted to get some video footage of him flying the plane, but it was too late. Fortunately a crew member had taken some pictures of Zhredder at the controls before I got there. In fact, he had removed the cover of the nose bubble and shot in the slipstream looking back at Zhredder through the cockpit window. I'll post the picture here when Zhredder gets it to me. Time was moving by so quickly I couldn't believe that we had already been in the air for some 15 minutes. I gave my video gear to Zhredder and climbed into the right side of the cockpit. After strapping in and getting my headset on, I was given control of the aircraft. At the controls of a genuine B-17G
Soon it was time to turn 180 degrees to head back towards Boeing Field. I found that there was considerable inertia when starting a turn. This was a heavy plane! The yoke would move a certain amount, then kind of stop as the controls began to meet the resistance of the mechanical surfaces. I found myself a little too timid with the controls at first, perhaps taking a moment too long to begin the turn. The pilot applied a bit of pressure to get me past the point of resistance, then left me alone to continue the turn. I applied a bit of right rudder, and found the turn quite smooth and comfortable once in it. There hadn't been enough time to get familiar with the proper horizon position before beginning my turn. I let the nose drop a few degrees during the turn, and quickly gave up trying to use the horizon as a reference point. I reverted to using the rate of climb indicator, artificial horizon, and altimeter instead. I started rolling out on the correct heading, but again found the interesting stiffness as the controls began to meet air resistance and inertia. Taking a little too long, I had to come left a few degrees to compensate. We cruised along for a few more minutes about 1,000 feet above the water. I stayed glued to the horizon, ensuring that the angle of bank didn't move from the zero position. I wanted to make a good impression of my flying skills. Below us the ferries, yachts, and pleasure boats in Puget Sound probably had no idea that a small crew of people above them were living out a dream. The pilot asked me to add a couple hundred feet of altitude (probably to make up for the alt I had lost during the turn), and I pulled back gently on the yoke. Angle of bank indicated a climb of only 200 feet per minute, yet in mere seconds speed had dropped from 150 to 140 (I'm not sure if the airspeed is marked in knots or mph). I was stunned to see how quickly the aircraft gave up its speed in a climb. I used to think it was unrealistic to limit speed this way in Warbirds and Air Warrior, but now the numbers seem accurate. Buzzing the field All too quickly it was time to vacate the copilot's seat. I looked around through the dorsal gun position for a moment, but we were approaching the field, and orders were given by hand signals that we were to take our seats. The flight had seemed much too short. Looking out the waist gun window on my way to the seat, I noticed that we were at a low altitude, moving at incredible speed. We couldn't have been more than 500 feet off the ground, and we were just screaming along Boeing Field. It quickly dawned on me that we were buzzing the field!
Unfortunately we couldn't see anything out of the windows since we were sitting on the floor below them. We waited and heard the gentle squeak as the wheels touched down in a very nice crosswind landing. The tail wheel rattled loudly through the opening in the floor. About 40 minutes after takeoff, we were down. The flight of a lifetime was over. As we disembarked, the engines were kept hot to allow the next group to enter and take off with a minimum turnaround time. We looked back longingly at the beautiful site of this aircraft, propellors whirling, as it prepared again to go where it was meant to live, in the wide open blue skies above. |
the joy of flying |
||||||||||||||||
|
|
The walkway was so narrow that I couldn't fit wearing the battery belt pack for my video camera. I had to back up, take off the 25lb belt and carry it directly in front of me in order to make it through the narrow passageway. It would not have been possible to walk through wearing a parachute. 
Wow. I was now piloting a B-17G, one of my all-time favorite aircraft. I looked out the starboard window at the two huge Cyclone engines on my side, purring like kittens, propellors whirling faithfully. 
It was sensational! The buildings flew by at a blur. At this altitude, we appeared to be going much faster than the 160-180mph I assumed we were at. What a rush! Nevertheless, it was time to take a seat so I reluctantly left the window. I sat across from Zhredder against the waist gun positions. His face told the story of his own emotions as we shouted out an attempt at conversation in the roar of the four Cyclones. Here's a photograph of him just before landing. See that glint in his eyes? There's a pilot if ever I saw one.