That’s as long as the heated suit was plugged in and working. My grandfather said that when the cable to his heated suit got shot through, he got up and out of the ball turret tout suite and hung out in the radio room, which was heated and manned the gun there instead.
He said that without the heated suit, you could very easily freeze to death quickly.
(Gramps was a flight engineer/top turret & sometime ball turret gunner on B-17Fs in the 549th Sqdn, 385th Bomb Group from about Aug. 1943 - December 1943)
Everything seemed to be in slow motion, and the controls were fairly heavy. It seemed to be InputAileron->ManeuveringCommitteeMeets->VoteTaken->PlaneRolls. The engines were LOUD. You had to wear ear protection to ride anywhere up front.
The rudder pedals were really hard to push. I couldn’t imagine what it would’ve been like for pilots to hold against a failed engine. For hours. Over the channel.
For about an hour, I rode in the tailgunner’s position. Just quietly by myself, trying to feel what they must’ve felt in the war. I tried to imagine their experience, but I doubt I even came close.
A former tail-gunner rode with us on one flight. He’d been shot down, and found the rear door wouldn’t open and everything forward of the waist gunners was in flames. He told us the tailwheel was extended when he was trying to get out (he never knew whether on purpose or due to hydraulic failure, most of the forward crew perished). He finally dove out the small opening around the tailwheel and spent the rest of the war as a POW.
A former B-17 pilot (Captain) also rode with us to an airshow honoring the Mighty 8th. On one mission, he lost his copilot to flak, and had to fly most of the way back trying to hold the body away from the yoke (it had fallen forward). He had also kept a small notebook during the war, with all the names of the crew in his quarters, starting with the first day he arrived in theatre. Out of 48, only two survived (he and one other). The pilots gave him the left seat for a lot of the flight (everyone figured he’d earned it). It was very apparent he knew the airplane well, even after 4-5 decades.
I got to attend an 8th Air Force reunion on one trip. It was one of the most memorable things I ever got to do. I actually got to meet and shake “Gabby” Gabreski’s hand, and even talk to him for awhile. He was very polite and warm. At one point during the ceremony, the color guard brought the flags into the room, and the sound of chairs sliding back as men stood to attention was like thunder. One man in a wheelchair was struggling to stand, and several of his companions rushed over and helped him come to attention. He was going to stand for the flag, even if it was his last time. It was really moving (I still get sniffles thinking about it).
Anyway, sorry for rambling. Reminiscences of an old man, I guess.
Paul Allen’s museum has one that’s a genuine airframe but with a substitute engine. It’ll be flying next weekend. The hangar where they used to restore Me-262s now has a Zero under restoration, but I don’t know the full story on it.
I shot pix of a Lancaster bomber in August 2009 that had visited Winnipeg. The area where it was parked was so small I could capture the entire aircraft only with a 28mm wide-angle lens on my 35mm camera, so I shot it from the end of the port wing.
I worked as a site guide at Historic Fort Snelling back in the '80s. Every year, the CAF would buzz the fort with a wide selection of aircraft during their annual airshow in St Paul. It was hard to do the 1827 Living History bit with F4Us, A-26s, P-51s, and God knows what else flying overhead at treetop level.
Every now and then, we’d also get craft from the nearby airbase zooming by: F-15s, A/F-18s, C-130s, C5As, and lots of helicopters in particular.
(Yes, the Shackleton was a four-engined descendant of the Lancaster via the Lincoln, and did have contra-rotating props on all engines. I saw a static example at Duxford on Monday.)
