You flew the B-17 and B-24, right? Who for? How did you get into it?
I flew with the Collings Foundation. My wife got me the gig. I heard the bombers were going to be in town so we of course went out to go for a ride. My thought was for us each to fly in the B-17, Bobbi said why don't you take a ride in each. Okay!! I did two rides back to back that night and was quite jazzed by what I had seen. A couple old vets that looked like the last thing they wanted to do was fly on the airplane, but as the flight progressed they lost 70 years and were once again the young warriors they had been.
I had recently retired from the Airport Police at Anch Intl Airport and offered to help them with crowd control, wiping airplanes, etc. They were happy to have the help so for the next couple days I did whatever needed to be done around the airplanes. Finally the last day or so they let me "flight engineer" which was more just baby sitting the passengers inflight and getting them seated before landing.
Bobbi and I were impressed enough with what we saw that we decided to do a plane sponsorship on the B-17. We donated $5k which allowed us "life time flight privileges" on the airplane between stops, I got an A-2 jacket with the Nine O Nine artwork and our name is painted on the side of the airplane. The most important thing was we helped to prolong these aircraft operating and helping the vets.
Since I was now a plane sponsor Bobbi, myself and a good friend were able to ride in the B-17 to Fairbanks. Bobbi returned home but I continued to Juneau. The last day of the stop in Juneau, I was heading home from here, the chief pilot Rob asked me if I would be interested in flying the bombers with him. I explained that was the dumbest question I'd ever been asked, of course I'm interested. (Now at this time I did not have a multi rating. I had about 1700 hours in mostly Cessna 182 and 206 airplanes hauling skydivers. I did have a commercial and instrument) Rob told me to get a multi and meet them on the tour route. Okay then! Bobbi and I had already planned to fly our 182 to the Oshkosh show, a wonderful trip, and as soon as we were home I popped down to the LA area for a quickie multi rating then it was out to Hartford, CT. with my sticky wet 12 hour or so multi rating. At first I couldn't fly the pax rides, I didn't have the experience required but I got every hour I could as we flew tour stop to tour stop. Fairly soon the foundation was able to get me as named insured and they got the FEDs to allow me to endanger the lives of paying passengers. Once I was flying rides the time built quickly. The foundation tours 10 months out of the year, normal tour stop is 3 days/2 nights. The tour starts in Florida and goes clockwise around the country.
Flying the bombers was without a doubt the most precious experience of my life. At first it was about flying the airplanes but quickly became about the veterans. I had dinner one night and seated at my table was Robert Morgan (Memphis Belle) and Paul Tibbetts (Enola Gay). After getting typed in the B-24 I did a ride for a B-24 pilot veteran and his family. He had been shot down and had to bail out. When he came out for the ride that morning he was wearing the B-10 jacket he had worn during the bailout (if still had the tear in the back where it snagged going out the bombay). He also had the wooden utensils he had carved to eat with while in the POW camp. Once we got the airplane cleaned up I put him in the seat and let him fly. The look on his family's faces as they watched him fly was very humbling. One of the best moments for sure.
The bombers allowed me to meet so many great people. One was a FW-190 pilot I noticed standing behind the B-17. He was staring at the tail gun position and when I talked to him he told me he had credit for 13 B-17s. With tears in his eyes he said "brave, brave boys".
How'd I get into it? I'm the worlds luckiest man.
