A buddy of mine was sitting at OSU Don Scott airport here in Columbus waiting to pick someone up. (Famous golfer, Dublin Ohio, figure it out
) He called me to tell me how there is a old airplane sitting at the airport and it has guns sticking out of it. I asked him how old it was and he said "really old and it's painted dark green".
This is about 1400 but lucky for me the boss left at 1300 so I sneak away and make the 5 min drive to the airport and there sits the Teaxs Raiders. The first time I had ever seen one. I couldn't believe it. I paid my $5 and took the walk through.
I could not believe how small and cramped it was. I had heard stories from my great-Uncle who was a ball turrent gunner about how cramped it was but I had no idea. This was even with the top turrent seat mechanism thingy gone. Me being 6'2" doesn't help. I had no idea that the rear gunner could not move through the main fuselage.
Understand that 100% of my aircraft knowledge is from PC sims. But I thought that this aircraft would have been bigger. Every simulation that I have seen that had a B-17 in it made it seem that everything was bigger. AH included. Looking out the pilot windows I couldn't believe how short the wingspan was and how close the engines were to the fuselage. Is it me?
I watched the crew work on the #4 engine for a while before I left for fear of getting fired. They were having some sort of pressure problem that they wanted to get it fixed and it was pushing back there taking off time. Hopefully I can get back there at 1700 and see them get airborne.
