I was working outside around noon, just south of downtown St. Louis and close to the river, and heard an unusual aircraft overhead.
I looked up, to see this (stock photo, I couldn’t get my cell camera out in time).
By it’s altitude and heading, I’m guessing she was putting in at Parks Airport just across the river from St. Louis.
A little online research tells me she was most likely Sentimental Journey, one of a dozen or so surviving airworthy B-17s, enroute to Springfield, Il, from Joplin, MO.
Come see us in Fort Worth. You can actually go for a ride in the Chuckie.
[Shameless Bragging] The owner actually let me fly it several years ago. I have left seat time in her, in my log book. [/SB]
The missus and I rode in a few airshows as well. Here’s a few pics of another plane in formation from the nose (bombadier’s) seat, and yet another from the waist gunner’s position. Here’s what it looked like taxiing out for the show, and yes it was loud in the nose area.
Sadly, my really good pics of that time have been lost.
I became a Flying Fortress fan as a kid thanks to watching Twelve O’Clock High (the TV series) in the 60s. I took a ride on the Collings Foundation’s “Nine O Nine” several years ago…expensive, but it was worth every penny! One of my fellow passengers was a former crewmember who was shot down over Germany. I asked him a mundane question about how cold it was up at altitude and he replied that being cold was the least of their worries.
The Yankee Lady is based at Willow Run airport; I see it creeping around Ann Arbor skies a few times a year. Was lucky enough to spot it when I was taking my parents back to Detroit airport after their visit last month; nice timing.
The **Aluminum Overcast **visited Torrance airport a few years back and I got to walk through it and holy crap! was it a tight fit! Seen up close a B-17 is not by today’s standards a big aircraft. I think the ideal B-17 crewman was about 5’-4" tall and about 120 pounds.
The aviation museum near where I work has both a B-29, a B-24 and a B-17 in airworthy condition, as well as a bunch of other planes they regularly fly around.
I worked as a volunteer for the CAF back in '86. Free admission to their St Paul airshow, free meals, free tours of the aircraft, the whole nine yards. At the time, they were restoring a B-25, and I got to try out the pilot’s seat.
I was taking a Trailways from Minneapolis to Milwaukee one weekend, and we made a pit stop in Madison. If you know the city at all, you know that the station was (maybe still is) on the main highway into town (US 151, I think), right near the intersection with the road to the airport.
I was getting back on the bus when I heard a plane taking off from the airport; No big deal, I thought. Then I realized the engine was making a noise I’d never heard before, like a swarm of angry wasps mixed in with a buzzsaw.
I turned around to look and there was an F4U Corsair rising over the treetops. I just stood there, staring in awe…
As a teen we spent the night once in a hotel out east that just had a fence seperating it and an airport. In the morning they had three engines on a B-17 fired up. Couldn’t get the fourth going but it was still an awesome sight.
And last summer leaving our home in South Minneapolis I saw a Japanese Zero fly overhead. I did a double take.
Hmmm. Well the length of the two are close. The B-17 though has a wing span of 103 feet verse the F-15 at 42 feet. And the B-17 obviously outweighs the F-15. So overall the B-17 is the bigger plane.
