B17 Flight - anyone done it - review

[robert l]

I cadged a ride in the EAA's B-17 a few years back. Here's the story I emailed to my friends:

http://www.wanttaja.com/b-17.pdf

The little inset diagrams show where I was standing when I took the picture (blue dot) and the general direction the camera was pointed (yellow fan).

Ron Wanttaja

I guess Sentimental Journey was a little different from Aluminum Overcast. We didn't have seat belts or harnesses. All's well that ends well !
Bob

[CharlieN]

Here are a few links to when my wife and I rode on the 17. I borrowed a GoPro, strapped it on my head knowing little about the camera.Our
pilot for this trip is Lorraine Morris whom is the only female certified for the B-17.

[Buzz]

Did it on one of the tours Aluminum Overcast does.

Loved it.

View from the nose with the shadow of the airplane on the cornfields below was like a time machine. I imagined all the young kids come back from missions who saw that same shadow and knew it meant they were close to landing and had survived another one.

I would have paid triple if we'd also bombed something.

It was as fun as a P-51 flight I took several years back.

My dad was a B-29 navigator on Tinian. So my next goal is a flight in Fifi or Doc.

[Sluggo]

I rode Aluminum Overcast on Tuesday, 23 July. Let me just say, it was WORTH every cent!! I was at the Norden bombsight in the nose when we passed over KOSH. Awesome.

Save up, scrape up, hell, check under the couch cushions, but find the $$$ to do it. Like the volunteers told us, the money raised from ticket sales is what keeps her flying, and not in a museum.

Oh...if you can, go for the first flight of the day. You'll get a little more time in the plane, as they warm up and run up the engines.

[moosepileit]

Bug spots look like flak

[Mayhemxpc]

What an awesome picture! I have had the opportunity to look through the Norden bomb sight from the air, too — but not with the view you got!!!

[mcdewey]

I can see our plane and tents in North 40. And the swamp that was between us and the bath house.

[CharlieN]

I rode Aluminum Overcast on Tuesday, 23 July. Let me just say, it was WORTH every cent!! I was at the Norden bombsight in the nose when we passed over KOSH. Awesome.

Interesting, on the 23rd, that morning I was on the ground shooting up at you.


FWIW, the 3rd weekend of September my wife and I are hosting an EAA B-17 tour stop in Rutland Vermont. Anyone in the region, feel free to stop on by and get a feel of what this great machine is like. Flights will be in the mornings with ground tours throughout the afternoons.