According to wiki, a warbird is any vintage military aircraft now operated by civilian organizations and individuals or historic arms of military forces. This is specifically for WWII / WW2 vintage aircraft.
B-29 Doc and C-47 That’s All Brother are coming to Chino in Southern California this September. Warbird rides are pricey but I’m considering going.
Have you been on a ride? Or considered? Or are you a Warbird fan? What’s your Warbird story?
Here is B-29 Doc.
Doc is a B-29 Superfortress and one of 1,644 manufactured in Wichita during World War II. Doc was found in the MHV Mojave Desert boneyard (officially Mojave Air and Space Port). Per wiki, Doc “did not see combat (in WWII) and was converted to a radar calibration aircraft in 1951 and based at Griffiss Air Force Base, New York. While based at Griffiss, the squadron’s members named their B-29s after characters in the Disney movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and 44-69972 became Doc.”
Here is C-47 That’s All Brother.
That’s All Brother was one of 800 C-47s over Normandy on D-Day, 06 June 1944. Per wiki, “Approximately 13,100 American paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions conducted parachute drops, followed by 3,937 glider infantrymen, on June 6.” Imagine 20,000 American grunts coming down from the air that day!
My mother was a flight attendant on the DC-3 with Philippine Airlines back in the day. For those not familiar, the civilian DC-3 was (is) the equivalent to the military C-47 Skytrain (or the Dakota in British RAF service).
I know I’ve shared photos of her here before. I’ve got those photos somewhere…
I’ve been around WWII warbirds a bit, but never flown in one. Closest would have been a ride in a friend’s Yak 52, which was also the first time I experienced aerobatics. Got to tour inside a B-17 once unsupervised, which was cool. And got to sit in a museum’s P-39.
But I have flown a number of times in cold war jets, including a MiG-15 and T-33. It’s easy - all it takes is money!
So in my own military parlance, I’d say that B-29 Doc is not a combat veteran, while C-47 That’s All Brother certainly is a combat veteran. I’m unsure if the ‘combat veteran’ tag is applied to airplanes or not. But I don’t see why not.
My father (b. 1929) has been a big fan of the B-17 Flying Fortress since he was a boy during WWII, so some years back I bought him a ride in this one:
Although I walked through it with him before the flight, I didn’t go up myself.
I have flown in two pre-war era biplanes, a Waco and a Stearman, although I don’t happen to know the ages of the actual planes. Here I am in the front seat of the latter, in 2010. (Photo by the passenger of the other plane in our formation.) These are probably not warbirds by the OP’s definition.
A definite warbird I sat in, but did not fly in, is the most famous B-29 of all time, Enola Gay. In the 1980s and '90s, I worked at the National Air and Space Museum, and twice a year they had an open house at the Garber Facility, where they did the restoration work before the new museum annex at Dulles Airport opened. For the open houses they recruited people from the downtown museum to help staff the various stations.
I had been helping with a research project on the Manhattan Project, so I took up a position at the forward fuselage of Enola Gay, along with one of the restoration experts who was preparing to put it on display a few years later.
At the end of the day, I asked the technician if I could go inside the plane, and he said sure. I was impressed at how spacious the cockpit of the B-29 is. I got to spend a few minutes in the pilot’s seat and the bombardier’s seat. It was an experience! (Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera with me, and it was well before the smart phone era.)
I’m a fan, but never flown in any. Closest I’ve been is a ride in a Ford Tri-Motor and a tour of the DC-3 airframe with the most recorded flight hours in existence (so I was told. Sure looked like it. Kinda tatty)
Never flown in one but living near Offutt AFB my whole life, I have seen a lot of history fly by. B2 bombers occasionally visit. B-52s are quite common even today. We have seen the 747 with a space shuttle piggy back when the shuttle program was ended.
I had a service call there on 09.12.2001 and saw Air Force One on the runway.
My last big project before I retired was to replace the fire alarm system at Strategic Air Command and Aerospace Museum
Hard to keep a crew working around all of those great planes but we got it done
Flew in C47, got to go inside B17, but damn, for a big dude, that plane is cramped.-
I’ve crawled around inside a B17 and sat in a F4U Corsair. Never left the ground, unfortunately.
When I was in the Air Force, I was babysitting a F-16 at a local airshow and was given a ride in an C-47 at the end of the day. I have flown in a C-46 a local group used to support. And have flown in a Stearman a couple times (once with my father).
I have been considering spending the dollars for a Mustang or Spitfire flight one of these days.
Slightly off subject, I got an incentive ride in the back seat of an F-4D many years ago.
I took a ride in the ill-fated Collings Foundation B-17 Nine-O-Nine back in 2009.
Growing up at airports in SoCal I saw and crawled around in/on lots of various warbirds. I remember when TallMantz Aviation still owned a mini-squadron of flyable B-25s which were used as generic photo ships and also starred in Catch-22. Between pre-airline Orange County, Chino, Long Beach, and Riverside there were warbirds everywhere then. Now, not so much.
I wrenched a bit on replica Nieuport 28s Dad flew as a production test pilot. Dangerous accident waiting to happen. We were all glad when that job ended. Dad owned a Stearman when I was a kid and I (or we) flew that a lot when I was a teen.
I’ve since crawled through a few over the years. And seen countless airshows. I’ve never flown in one by any reasonable definition.
One of my post-retirement plans has been is to pony up the cash to ride a WW-II bird with these guys: Cavanaugh Flight Museum - Home (cavflight.org). I’ve not visited their website in a couple years, but I’m saddened to see now that the website includes no mention of the rides they used to offer. I suspect the B-17/P-63 midair last year did for a lot of those offerings at museums and collections everywhere.
I’m reminded again that time’s-a -wastin’ in more ways than one. If you (any you including me) have any interest in getting airborne in a WW-II plane, it’s past time to make arrangements. We’re down to the very last trickle of availability.
In USAF one of my early jobs was liaison / instructor to various Latin American air forces. Flew or rode in lots of 1950s-1960s vintage tactical or small transport stuff. Mostly the USAF cast-offs we’d given them in the 60s-70s. But also a fun mix of foreign equipment too. Much of which (ours and theirs) was dangerously falling apart. Oh to be young and dumb again …
I’ve flown the T6 Harvards (“Texans” to Americans) pictured below. Back when I was closer to the warbird scene I would fly photographers on air to air sorties and I would occasionally fly 1066 for fun. They’re both ex Royal New Zealand Air Force, despite the clothes 1066 is wearing.
I have also been in the back of P-51 “Miss Torque”. It had rudimentary dual controls and I did a few turns, nothing aerobatic. Fun fact, Miss Torque’s NZ registration was ZK-PLI. The LI being Roman numerals for 51, so “P51”.
@blondebear very cool! Thanks for your video, those were some great shots and I’m surprised they let you move to those different places in the plane. Must’ve been awesome for you.
I saw Nine-O-Nine when she was at Moffett, and maybe that was when you took your ride. Who knows. I bought one of her key chain tags with her likeness on it. And then she crashed soon after I saw her.
So very sad when she crashed. That was near where I went to high school and junior high, in West Hartford.
IIRC a B-25 was used as a camera plane in the filming of The Battle of Britain…?
My wife and I rode a Stearman out of Kermit Weeks’ place near Orlando. Fantasy of Flight, IIRC? Anyway, not WWII but somewhat related. That was a fun experience.
I’ve been inside B-29 Doc when it was at Mather Field in October 2019, just before covid hit. But oh, to go up for a ride on Doc would be awesome.
I found some pics. This was in about June 2011, and yes it was at Kermit Weeks’ Fantasy of Flight in Orlando.
Never flown in one, but a friend was involved in the restoration of the Avro Lancaster Mk. X, at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. That museum eventually restored it to airworthiness. Here it is:
While it was under restoration, he took me on a tour of the inside. I was surprised at how small it was inside. The restoration was eventually complete, and today, it is one of only two Lancasters still flying today.
So, while I have never flown in one, I’ve certainly been in one that continues to fly today.
I have left-seat time in this B-17, albeit with an instructor (I am in no way qualified). I worked on its crew for a few years as unskilled labor, back when it was known as “Chuckie”. I have lots of hours as a passenger going to airshows, and have enjoyed the view from the bombadier and tail-gunner positions for many hours. On one trip, the owner rewarded me with the left seat for about 20 minutes, since the other pilot was qualified to instruct in it. So somewhere in one of my old logbooks is an entry for “B17G”.
For some reason, I can’t embed videos this morning, so I’ll try a link:
Linky.
I have a virtually identical selfie of me and my wife in the Waco I mentioned, at the Flying Circus Airshow in Fredericksburg, VA.
