Another Air Crash

 

1. Real shame, but at least everyone got out safe.

   I still kick myself for not taking a ride on one a couple of years ago (when I was more flush with cash) when I visited the EAA branch museum in Mesa, AZ.  As I filmed the takeoff and landing, I overheard the guys running the museum talking then that the insurance rates were rising so quick that it wont be long before all the rides will be halted.

   If you can scrape up the cash ($500), dont wait… these birds wont be flying forever.

   Posted by TimO       06/14/2011  at  07:47 PM  



2. OK ... I have a problem.
   

   a working replica of the B-17

   color me confused.

   the pilot emergency-landed the vintage plane
   

   How can it be a vintage plane when it’s a replica. However, elsewhere in the stories it reads like the original aircraft built in the 40s.

   ???

   Bad enough if it was only a replica.
   Doubly so if the original.

   Posted by peiper       06/15/2011  at  07:37 AM  



3. That’s why I put in the “let me clarify” part, because it confused me a bit at first too. The newspaper author could have been clearer.

   During the war, there was an airplane that flew with the 8th Air Force called the Liberty Belle. This airplane is not that airplane, but it was given the same name nearly 60 years later to honor the memory of the “real” Liberty Belle, which the owner’s father had fought in.

   This airplane was built at the end of the war, so it never saw combat. It has it’s own story, from being rescued from the scrap metal dealer, to being used as an engine test bed, (see photo near end of wiki entry) to being a museum plane, suffering damage from a hurricane, and being left to rot in a shed after that. It was purchased by the current owner and given a 9 year, $3.5 million restoration, and has been flying around the air show circuit since 2004. So it is a real B-17 (a G model, with the chin turret and tail gunner). And it is vintage, being built in 1945. The only replica aspect is that it was not the Liberty Belle that flew bombing missions. That part was just paint.

   Posted by Drew458       06/15/2011  at  09:03 AM  



4. Went to see this bird in April when it was here at the Beoing Museum of Flight. Damn. Just damn. Great airplane and the folks connected to it were tops. Damn.

   Posted by Rickvid in Seattle       06/15/2011  at  02:35 PM  

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