Friday, May 4, 2007

Vintage Flying


Just signed up for a trip on a B-17 out of Monterey Airport next weekend. Several WWII aircraft tour around the USA offering rides, including a B-24 Liberator and a B-25 as well as the B-17. (Coincidentally, my father-in-law flew B-17s out of the UK during the war.)

It will be interesting to experience, even in a very limited way, what it must have been like spending endless hours manning those planes to and from bombing runs over Germany. Of course, it will in no way be close to the real nature of flying combat missions in war time, night-after-night passing through German AA batteries in a flimsy metal tube while also being strafed from above by fighters, but nevertheless I’ll be sparing a thought for those whose lot-in-life that was.

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