[Aloha1]

Those with an interest in history and/or our fighting aircraft from WWII, should head over to Leesburg Airport before 4PM today to see the last surviving B24 Liberator Bomber, a B17, and a P51 Mustang fighter, the Ace of the air!

My son and I went over yesterday and gained a new sense of appreciation for the difficult conditions the crews of these bombers faced every flight. These aircraft were some of the main reasons the USA still exists today.

[Two Bills]

Originally Posted by Aloha1

Those with an interest in history and/or our fighting aircraft from WWII, should head over to Leesburg Airport before 4PM today to see the last surviving B24 Liberator Bomber, a B17, and a P51 Mustang fighter, the Ace of the air!

My son and I went over yesterday and gained a new sense of appreciation for the difficult conditions the crews of these bombers faced every flight. These aircraft were some of the main reasons the USA still exists today.

My earliest memories as a kid, were of the the 'Flying Forts' as we called them flying over to bomb Germany. As a small kid the site and noise was so exciting.
Then the 'Lancs' at night keeping us awake.
Did not like the 'Doodlebug' that came the other way, and rearanged our house into open plan living though!

[flyguy909]

I saw the same B17 and B24 fly into a regional field up in CT some years ago back. They were coming in to the airport for the weekend and I worked within a half mile of the field. I heard them circling (can't miss the sound of those radials) and raced over. I was and am a private pilot and knew how to get over very close to the numbers on the active runway and got out my aviation band radio (yea, hopeless aviation geek). They came in and first did high speed flybys very low right over the runway... I remember the radio chatter between the two was about how short the runway was.

My father was a B24 pilot in the Pacific in WW2, so it was especially meaningful to me to see (and hear) these bombers flyby this close right off the deck like this.

[SIRE1]

I went over to Leesburg yesterday and went through the B24. Barely made it through so I decided to only look at the B17 from the outside. Couldn't help wondering how those air crews could handle the cold weather at 30,000 ft. The waist gunners were standing in front of an open window and the skin of the bombers are really only a thin sheet of aluminum and couldn't have provided any warmth inside the plane. I have to really appreciate what that generation went through. It was a real pleasure to get up close to these iconic planes. Saw someone taking a plane ride in the P51 Mustang.

[Aloha1]

Originally Posted by SIRE1

I went over to Leesburg yesterday and went through the B24. Barely made it through so I decided to only look at the B17 from the outside. Couldn't help wondering how those air crews could handle the cold weather at 30,000 ft. The waist gunners were standing in front of an open window and the skin of the bombers are really only a thin sheet of aluminum and couldn't have provided any warmth inside the plane. I have to really appreciate what that generation went through. It was a real pleasure to get up close to these iconic planes. Saw someone taking a plane ride in the P51 Mustang.

Trust me, the B17 was much harder to move around in than the 24. You went up the rear access port then got into a crawl position to duck through into the waist gunner area. The catwalk between the stacked bombs was the width of your foot and about 10 inches wide.
Amazing how those men managed it all.