B-17 from roof

[gzecc]

This afternoon I was up on my roof sweeping the chimney. I hear an unusual plane sound. Being on the roof I don't look up right away. I eventually do and see a slow moving B-17 at about 1000 feet heading north. Pretty cool. Don't think I ever saw one flying in real life. Hope they flew faster than that back in the day.

 

[jharkin]

http://www.collingsfoundation.org
(broken link removed to http://www.collingsfoundation.org/cf_schedule-wof.htm)


What you saw was the Wings of Freedom Tour by the Collings Foundation. They travel around giving rides in a variety of planes including their B-17 a B-25, a 2 seat P-51 and others. The tour was in Morristown today which is probably where he was coming from. A couple weeks ago they where at Norwood airport near me and flew right over my house 3 times.

The Collings Foundation itself has its headquarters 45 minutes from me and has a wonderful but private facility there that has a great collection of vintage aircraft, military vehicles and cars. they do a few public open houses each year and Ive been lucky to attend a few. They where big in the news recently as they just acquired a huge collection of vintage tanks from a collector on the west coast and plan to build an expanded museum here. Their large aircraft like the Fortress are based in another facility down south shared wit the Commemorative (ex-Confederate) Air Force.


To answer your question, the B-17G goes a bit faster than it probably was doing over your house... but not much. Unloaded with the throttles to the wall it could hit around 280-300 at 20,000 feet but airspeed on a real mission in the war with a heavy load was only in the 220-250mph range, which is why it needed those dozen .50 cals to fight off the Luftwaffe; And still suffered horrible losses before the long range escort fighters where available.



But the sound of those 4 big radials is like music to the ears wasn't it? My wife was wondering what I was so excited about that day.....

 

[Halligan]

Just visited the Collings website. Since my grandfather was a P-51 Mustang pilot during the war I'd love to go up in the P-51 they have. To bad I just missed the nearby event's. Just as well, my wife would probably kill me if I spent over $3,000 for an airplane ride.

 

[CaptSpiff]

If you just want to try an hour in an airplane, go to your nearest General Aviation airfield and find the "flight school". Tell them you'd like to learn to be a Private Pilot, but want to go for an intro ride/lesson with an instructor. Tell em you want the full hour, not just the 10 minute intro ride, and you want a logbook entry so it can count as real training hours towards your Private. Price will be around $250.

Best part is you'll be flying the airplane almost the whole time.

If you're adventurous, once up in the air tell the instructor that you want to try some "stalls". This is part of the later training, where the plane is slowed so much that the smooth movement of air across the top of the wing is disrupted and becomes turbulent. The plane usually noticeably shutters and then assumes an aggressive nose down attitude. Feels scary at first, but is part of the normal training a student pilot must master & demonstrate for their flight tests. Skip this if you don't like roller coasters.

 

[gzecc]

http://www.collingsfoundation.org
(broken link removed to http://www.collingsfoundation.org/cf_schedule-wof.htm)


What you saw was the Wings of Freedom Tour by the Collings Foundation. They travel around giving rides in a variety of planes including their B-17 a B-25, a 2 seat P-51 and others. The tour was in Morristown today which is probably where he was coming from. A couple weeks ago they where at Norwood airport near me and flew right over my house 3 times.

The Collings Foundation itself has its headquarters 45 minutes from me and has a wonderful but private facility there that has a great collection of vintage aircraft, military vehicles and cars. they do a few public open houses each year and Ive been lucky to attend a few. They where big in the news recently as they just acquired a huge collection of vintage tanks from a collector on the west coast and plan to build an expanded museum here. Their large aircraft like the Fortress are based in another facility down south shared wit the Commemorative (ex-Confederate) Air Force.


To answer your question, the B-17G goes a bit faster than it probably was doing over your house... but not much. Unloaded with the throttles to the wall it could hit around 280-300 at 20,000 feet but airspeed on a real mission in the war with a heavy load was only in the 220-250mph range, which is why it needed those dozen .50 cals to fight off the Luftwaffe; And still suffered horrible losses before the long range escort fighters where available.



But the sound of those 4 big radials is like music to the ears wasn't it? My wife was wondering what I was so excited about that day.....



View attachment 140123

You must have pegged it! About 1/2 hour later (I was in the yard cooking on the grill) it went back south in the other direction. Called my wife out to see it. She wasn't so impressed. How much is it for a ride?
Man, those poor guys were sitting ducks moving so slow. I guess having the double 50's made them feel better.

 

[bassJAM]

I'd love to see a B-17 up close and personal! My grandpa worked as a mechanic during WWII on B-17's. I guess he got plenty of flight time in them, but always in safe areas because he'd have to have the pilots take him up in the cold of high altitude to troubleshoot things that worked fine on the ground but would stick up in the air.

 

[gzecc]

Today in the Hanover NJ area I saw another WWII bird. It was a fighter, hard to tell from below, my first impression was a P51 but thats just a guess.

 

[begreen]

P51s flew by us this June. It's the first time I had seen them in the air and first time hearing them running. That was a special day.

 

[Halligan]

Heres my picture of grandfather with his P-51 during the war. The photo came from a book about the 78th fighter group. Too bad I never got to meet him. He died in 1955 when the F-86 Saber he was flying crashed after an engine failure.

 

[Desmo]

When I was a kid, I lived near Oshkosh, WI. Every summer, the world's largest airshow is held there. It was absolutely fantastic to see....and hear...the WW2 warbirds fly over. Nothing quite like the sound of a screaming Rolls Royce Merlin in a P-51 Mustang!

 

[osagebow]

They Will be near here inn Staunton, VA this week. Then in Richmond next weekend .
Great pic, Halligan- sorry you never got to see him in person.

 

[Flatbedford]

I think the same plane was flying over my house last Saturday. We have seen it often going up and down the Hudson. It does make quite a sound. I can only imagine what a few dozen of them sounded like on a bombing run. Talk about shock and awe!

 

[jharkin]

When I was a kid, I lived near Oshkosh, WI. Every summer, the world's largest airshow is held there. It was absolutely fantastic to see....and hear...the WW2 warbirds fly over. Nothing quite like the sound of a screaming Rolls Royce Merlin in a P-51 Mustang!

How lucky to grow up there. I did a road trip from the east coast once, in 2004 to see the EAA Oshkosh Fly in. That was a particularly big year because of the Wright Brothers 100th, but its huge every year like you said.

Really worth being on the bucket list for anyone with a big interest in aviation.


Im trying to find some of the pictures I took. The noontime airshow everyday was just unbelievable... I have never seen so many flying WWII birds in one place... literally the P-51 flight line alone looked like an 8th Air Force base in old England. Multiple B-17s, B-24s, B-25s. Extremely rare planes like a real flying Ford Tri-motor, German Junkers, WWI vintage, etc. Mix that up with the best of today, got to see a lecture on SpaceShipOne, etc, watch some of the greats of aerobatics flying. amazing.

 

[DAKSY]

Must've been a tremendous roaring from overhead...

http://www.worldwarphotos.info/gall...r-formation-enroute-to-target-384-bomb-group/

Imagine hearing ONE HUNDRED SIXTY of them in the air...

http://www.ansa39-45.fr/independencedayenglish.htm

Or maybe TWO HUNDRED NINETY-ONE...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Raid_on_Schweinfurt

12,731 built. :

General characteristics

Crew: 10: Pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier/nose gunner, flight engineer/top turret gunner, radio operator, waist gunners (2), ball turret gunner, tail gunner[202]
Length: 74 ft 4 in (22.66 m)
Wingspan: 103 ft 9 in (31.62 m)
Height: 19 ft 1 in (5.82 m)
Wing area: 1,420 sq ft (131.92 m2)
Airfoil: NACA 0018 / NACA 0010
Aspect ratio: 7.57
Empty weight: 36,135 lb (16,391 kg)
Loaded weight: 54,000 lb (24,500 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 65,500 lb (29,700 kg)
Powerplant: 4 × Wright R-1820-97 "Cyclone" turbosupercharged radial engines, 1,200 hp (895 kW) each
Performance

Maximum speed: 287 mph (249 kn, 462 km/h)
Cruise speed: 182 mph (158 kn, 293 km/h)
Range: 2,000 mi (1,738 nmi, 3,219 km) with 2,700 kg (6,000 lb) bombload
Service ceiling: 35,600 ft (10,850 m)
Rate of climb: 900 ft/min (4.6 m/s)
Wing loading: 38.0 lb/sq ft (185.7 kg/m2)
Power/mass: 0.089 hp/lb (150 W/kg)
Armament


Guns: 13 × .50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns in 8 positions (2 in the Bendix chin turret, 2 on nose cheeks, two staggered waist guns, 2 in upper Sperry turret, 2 in Sperry ball turret in belly, 2 in the tail and one in the nose)
Bombs:

Short range missions (<400 mi): 8,000 lb (3,600 kg)
Long range missions (≈800 mi): 4,500 lb (2,000 kg)
Overload: 17,600 lb (7,800 kg)

Along that vein, PGRNY (et al) escorted 50 WWII Veterans to Albany Airport last Saturday AM (Oh-Dark-Thirty Hours) for a Leatherstocking Honor Flight to DC. All-in-all a, "Feel Good" mission, but at the same time, it's sad to see how the ravages of time has taken its toll on these HEROES...

 

[jharkin]

Or maybe TWO HUNDRED NINETY-ONE...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Raid_on_Schweinfurt

Just imagine what the sky looked like during BigWeek with thousands of bombers and fighters involved....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Air_Force#Big_Week


Most of these massive missions where spread over hours, I wonder how many you could see in the sky at any one time. Certainly none of the movie adaptations have done the true scale of it justice.

 

[firefighterjake]

My German-American father-in-law didn't have to imagine what it sounded like . . . my wife said he spoke very rarely about growing up as a child during WW II, but said the one thing he did mention was having to go to the underground bomb shelters and emerging afterwards to find death and destruction . . .

 

[begreen]

We had an Osprey fly over yesterday. First time we have seen or heard one of them. Big blades make quite a chop into the air.