Boeing Niner Zero Niner AwwwYEAH!

Today shooting ILS approaches at McMinnville, with the blinder on, I had a
close encounter. There was a lot of chatter and people stepping on each
other, but I heard one aircraft rumbling calling out over McMinnville
looking for the traffic on approach (me). Didn't catch his call numbers.

A few minutes later I was flying outbound from the runway at 2,400 and Delcy
said "I have the traffic...whoa! That's a BIG ASS airplane" and then ('cause
I was under the hood and couldn't see out the window) "Whoa! Look at that!
What's it doing here?" My eyeballs threatened to slither out of their
sockets, down my cheeks and out the window, so I raised the blinder and
looked...

A camera in my head went *snap* and the view was unforgettable. At ten
o'clock low to my nose, against the valley floor, was the B-17 Nine-O-Nine.
Her red tail and wingtips cut across the yellow and green fields and the
black, bending river below, and she passed low and slow; probably a thousand
feet, along the instrument approach. So close I could see the glint off
the plexiglass turret and the black traction tape and red gas caps on her
olive wings. 60 years ago, I'd be thankful I wasn't German. Today I am
simply thankful.

We aborted the approach and circled high because she was too close. I
tailgated a B-17 Flying Fortress! And didn't spazz out and auger the plane!

She passed around and I got back under the hood. I was flying in the
McMinnville pattern with a B-17 and a I had a damned blinder on! She was
right out there, and I could not see it. NNNOOOooooo!!!

I was freaking out 'cause I'd just seen the Joe DiMaggio of warbirds, AND I
still had to turn 180 degrees and fly the approach down to the runway.

It turned and banked away, and we were down at about the same altitude then,
and her red tail sliced across the landscape again like a bloody fin. Back
under the hood and headed for the Newburg VOR, Delcy covered up the
directional indicator and the artificial horizon. Harsh. Did one form of
approach for Aurora, (nailed it), circled around and did the instrument
landing approach. Passed the airfield at about 500' and she says "Whoa!
There's that airplane again. There's two of them!"

Down on the tarmac at Aurora airfield (next to I-5 south of Newburg) are the
WWII B-17 Nine-O-Nine and the B-24 Dragon and Its Tail. It is my not so
humble opinion that Nine-O-Nine is the single most beautiful flying aircraft
in the entire world. It's the very same airplane that we rode on with my
grandfather on June 17, 1993, which was the happiest I remember seeing him
and the first time he'd ridden one since crashing into a French countryside
50 years previous.

For years, somehow, the airplane and I always cross paths, but this is the
first time I've ever seen one flying from above.

Awesome!

-c

Very cool! Same B-17 and B-24 that were buzzing my house at 1000 ft. just
prior to the Memorial day weekend. I don't know how many trips I made to
the front and back yard when I heard that wonderful growl of multiple radial
engines.

I had a nice surprise last year when (unknown to me) they were at my home
airport after I'd come back from an overnight xc flight. I go to enter the
pattern and turning from the 45 for a left downwind, I notice both planes on
the ramp. Not something you see every day. Of course, I just had to hang
around the airport after I gassed up the plane and tied it down.

Glad you got to peek out form under the hood and catch the action.

--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL, IA Student

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

Coolest one I ever saw was the guppy, cruising down the Hudson corridor at, oh,
600-700 feet. That's also a view not to be forgotten.

Jose


--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

About 6 weeks ago, I was at CNH (Claremont, NH) when a plane called in
to announce an over-fly. The transmission went something like:
"Claremont traffic, Liberator XXXX is 5 miles to the east, overflying
the field at 1000'." I sat and contemplated just what a "Liberator"
was, since the only one I was familiar with was the B24. In a few short
seconds, a beautiful B-24 swept in over the airport, then headed north.
Wish I had my camera.

gatt wrote:
Today shooting ILS approaches at McMinnville, with the blinder on, I had a
close encounter. There was a lot of chatter and people stepping on each
other, but I heard one aircraft rumbling calling out over McMinnville
looking for the traffic on approach (me). Didn't catch his call numbers.

A few minutes later I was flying outbound from the runway at 2,400 and Delcy
said "I have the traffic...whoa! That's a BIG ASS airplane" and then ('cause
I was under the hood and couldn't see out the window) "Whoa! Look at that!
What's it doing here?" My eyeballs threatened to slither out of their
sockets, down my cheeks and out the window, so I raised the blinder and
looked...

A camera in my head went *snap* and the view was unforgettable. At ten
o'clock low to my nose, against the valley floor, was the B-17 Nine-O-Nine.
Her red tail and wingtips cut across the yellow and green fields and the
black, bending river below, and she passed low and slow; probably a thousand
feet, along the instrument approach. So close I could see the glint off
the plexiglass turret and the black traction tape and red gas caps on her
olive wings. 60 years ago, I'd be thankful I wasn't German. Today I am
simply thankful.

We aborted the approach and circled high because she was too close. I
tailgated a B-17 Flying Fortress! And didn't spazz out and auger the plane!

She passed around and I got back under the hood. I was flying in the
McMinnville pattern with a B-17 and a I had a damned blinder on! She was
right out there, and I could not see it. NNNOOOooooo!!!

I was freaking out 'cause I'd just seen the Joe DiMaggio of warbirds, AND I
still had to turn 180 degrees and fly the approach down to the runway.

It turned and banked away, and we were down at about the same altitude then,
and her red tail sliced across the landscape again like a bloody fin. Back
under the hood and headed for the Newburg VOR, Delcy covered up the
directional indicator and the artificial horizon. Harsh. Did one form of
approach for Aurora, (nailed it), circled around and did the instrument
landing approach. Passed the airfield at about 500' and she says "Whoa!
There's that airplane again. There's two of them!"

Down on the tarmac at Aurora airfield (next to I-5 south of Newburg) are the
WWII B-17 Nine-O-Nine and the B-24 Dragon and Its Tail. It is my not so
humble opinion that Nine-O-Nine is the single most beautiful flying aircraft
in the entire world. It's the very same airplane that we rode on with my
grandfather on June 17, 1993, which was the happiest I remember seeing him
and the first time he'd ridden one since crashing into a French countryside
50 years previous.

For years, somehow, the airplane and I always cross paths, but this is the
first time I've ever seen one flying from above.

Awesome!

-c




--
Remove "2PLANES" to reply.

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 12:56:09 -0700, "gatt"
wrote:

So close I could see the glint off
the plexiglass turret and the black traction tape and red gas caps on her
olive wings. 60 years ago, I'd be thankful I wasn't German. Today I am
simply thankful.

I'm thankful I didn't have to fly one in combat. B-17's are beautiful
airplanes but during WWII, they were big slow targets. The Germans
swatted them out of the sky in huge numbers. Several missions
resulted in 60 airplanes being shot down out of about 300 that made
the mission. During another mission in which more bombers sortied,
over 80 were knocked down.

That era is gone forever. All those guys could count the number of
people lost and calculate their chances for staying alive till their
tour was over, they weren't good. Yet most went anyway. Some didn't,
a lot of men cracked up psychologically and a number of bombers were
flown to neutral countries to be interned rather than complete the
mission or bail out over enemy territory. Can't say I blame them, the
psychological stress of having to sit their and be shot at without the
ability to maneuver to escape the fire must have been enormous.

Overall, some 12,000 heavy bombers from both Britain and the US were
shot down during the war. Mull that number over for a second, it
represents an incredible effort and loss of life.

Corky Scott

My Dad's brother was one of those "swatted out of the sky". "His" plane was
a B-17G, "Quarterback", but for some reason he was flying "Plain Mister
Yank" IIRC, when he went down.

I was born well after WW II, so I never knew him, but we had some uniforms,
his medals, and a few pictures.

And the pictures used to fascinate me: they had an octagonal "cut-out" of
the nose of the aircraft. This was to prevent our enemies from examining
purloined pictures to get the details of the Norden bombsite, which was one
of the keys to our bombing successes.

Flash forward to around 1975...

I was working as a disk jockey. We frequently received electronics surplus
catalogues at the station, and I was flipping through one while the records
were playing.

One of the hot items being offered was Norden bombsites, for only $29.95.
Interesting, but I really didn't have any use for one.

A couple of hours later I grabbed the copy for a newscast off the teletype,
sat down, and started reading. At the end of the copy there were always a
few very short stories to enable us to properly time our newscasts. I was
running a little short so I started reading these filler stories.

And one of these filler stories turned out to be interesting: it seems that
one of the men who was part of a plot to steal the Norden bombsight during
the War had just been released from prison.

I thought there was a certain irony that this guy had spent more than 30
years in prison for trying to steal something I could now buy for less than
$30!




wrote in message
...
On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 12:56:09 -0700, "gatt"
wrote:

So close I could see the glint off
the plexiglass turret and the black traction tape and red gas caps on her
olive wings. 60 years ago, I'd be thankful I wasn't German. Today I am
simply thankful.

I'm thankful I didn't have to fly one in combat. B-17's are beautiful
airplanes but during WWII, they were big slow targets. The Germans
swatted them out of the sky in huge numbers. Several missions
resulted in 60 airplanes being shot down out of about 300 that made
the mission. During another mission in which more bombers sortied,
over 80 were knocked down.

That era is gone forever. All those guys could count the number of
people lost and calculate their chances for staying alive till their
tour was over, they weren't good. Yet most went anyway. Some didn't,
a lot of men cracked up psychologically and a number of bombers were
flown to neutral countries to be interned rather than complete the
mission or bail out over enemy territory. Can't say I blame them, the
psychological stress of having to sit their and be shot at without the
ability to maneuver to escape the fire must have been enormous.

Overall, some 12,000 heavy bombers from both Britain and the US were
shot down during the war. Mull that number over for a second, it
represents an incredible effort and loss of life.

Corky Scott

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...
Coolest one I ever saw was the guppy, cruising down the Hudson corridor
at, oh,
600-700 feet. That's also a view not to be forgotten.

They had a Guppy or SuperGuppy (used to haul Atlas rockets) at the Tillamook
Air Museum. Can you believe the coastal wind PUSHED the airplane against
the blimp hangar?

Minor damage, but still amazing.

-c

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 08:40:18 -0500, "Bill Denton"
wrote:


And the pictures used to fascinate me: they had an octagonal "cut-out" of
the nose of the aircraft. This was to prevent our enemies from examining
purloined pictures to get the details of the Norden bombsite, which was one
of the keys to our bombing successes.

Flash forward to around 1975...

I was working as a disk jockey. We frequently received electronics surplus
catalogues at the station, and I was flipping through one while the records
were playing.

One of the hot items being offered was Norden bombsites, for only $29.95.
Interesting, but I really didn't have any use for one.

A couple of hours later I grabbed the copy for a newscast off the teletype,
sat down, and started reading. At the end of the copy there were always a
few very short stories to enable us to properly time our newscasts. I was
running a little short so I started reading these filler stories.

And one of these filler stories turned out to be interesting: it seems that
one of the men who was part of a plot to steal the Norden bombsight during
the War had just been released from prison.

I thought there was a certain irony that this guy had spent more than 30
years in prison for trying to steal something I could now buy for less than
$30!

Like most legends, the accuracy of the Norden bombsight has been
hugely overblown.

The Norden was developed prior to WWII and it was fiendishly difficult
to manufacture due to the high number of close tolerance fittings,
bearings and shafts that went into it. Plus, it was extremely
intolerant of dust and shocks which are endemic in a combat zone of
course, not to mention the constant upkeep it required while in the
combat zone, which was limited in that there were only so many expert
technicians and a lot of sights. In addition, the training for the
use of the sight occured in the desert southwest where flying weather
was nearly perfect. The bombing runs were conducted at altitudes
normally lower than 10,000 feet. So the target was visible to the
crews for a long time during the approach, the altitude at which they
bombed was very low compared to the height they would bomb from in
actual combat, and nothing disturbed the bomb run.

In actual combat, the heavy bomber crews found things VERY different.
They bombed from *at least* 22,000 feet (many times they were higher
than that), they almost never actually saw the primary target due to
wretched northern European weather and with the Norden you actually
had to SEE the target in order to hit it, they were opposed by vicious
fighter attacks which disrupted the formations not to mention shooting
down numerous bombers, the flak barrages were often deadly accurate
and unavoidable, and the bombs themselves were not aerodynamically
very stable and often wafted away from their intended target.

In addition there was the major problem with daylight bombing over
Europe: If every bomber bombed individually as per training, that
meant each bomber had to approach the target singly, which was
obviously not going to happen as it would string the bombers out for
hundreds of miles and leave them all vulnerable to fighters and flack.
So the bombers bombed from formation. But while in formation, the
bombardiers could not all do their own bomb runs because once the bomb
run was initiated, the bombardier flew the airplane through a linkup
with the auto pilot and the bombsight. You can't have each bombardier
flying his own bombrun while in tight formation or there would have
been many midair collisions. So only the lead bombardier flew the
bomb run. Every other bomber in the formation dropped when they saw
the lead bomber's bombs go, or upon radio signal. The accuracy of the
drop depended on the skill of the lead bombardier (if he was still
alive at that point, the Germans pointedly attacked the lead aircraft
in all formations), and how tight the formation was at the time of the
group drop.

In the meantime the Germans were making smoke upwind of the city, and
the first bomb strikes often caused enough smoke to obscure the actual
target so that the follow on squadrons had to somewhat blindly toggle
into the smoke.

Even when the bombers actually accurately hit the intended target, it
turned out that machine tools of they day were extremely resistant to
blast damage. The Germans also turned out to be extremely good at
repairing damage and renuing production. They also got very good at
dispersing the factories and moving them underground.

The result of all this, and more, was that the heavy bombing campaign
was far less effective at doing what the Army Air Force leaders
postulated they could do at the outset of the war.

The bottom line is that accurate strategic bombing, whether it be
daylight or night, visually or radar guided, did not occur except in a
few very isolated cases, during WWII.

That did not stop the AAF not only from claiming that they exclusively
targeted factories and war related industries only, not city centers,
even though that was patently false. They also claimed that strategic
bombing effectively shortened the war. This despite the fact that
Germany's wartime military production ramped up throughout the war and
actually peaked in late 1944 at the absolute height of daylight and
nightime bombing.

The leaders of the Air Force believed in the fallacy of strategic
bombing throughout the 50's and 60's and a case I think could be made
that they continue to overbelieve in the effectiveness of bombing even
today.

Corky Scott

PS, the Germans had no need for something as complicated as the Norden
bombsight because they did not bomb from great heights nor did they
posses a heavy bomber. Their bombers were for the most part, medium
battlefield support aircraft and dive bombers.

I'm thankful I didn't have to fly one in combat. B-17's are beautiful
airplanes but during WWII, they were big slow targets.

Particularly for flak. Every B-17 vet I've ever talked to (dozens) said
they'd have rather shoot it out with the Luftwaffe than ride through a flak
storm on any given day. Over Germany, they generally got both, sometimes
simultaneously.

All those guys could count the number of people lost and calculate their
chances for staying alive till their tour was over, they weren't good.

Seven missions was the average, which is about a month. 25, then 30, then
35 were the requirement to rotate. They had the highest casualty percentages
for the allies according to some sources, although I know one veteran who
nearly completed two tours. (Had a nut shot off.)

The B-24 is a magnifent airplane and worthy of a better place in history,
but it's sad that the B-17 airframe couldn't stick around longer in greater
civilian duties. I think they're one of the most majestic airplanes ever
flown.

For Christmas, though, I'd settle for a B-25 or even a P-38. BTW, they
gave the bomber visit good press on the news last night.

-c

In article , gatt wrote:

but it's sad that the B-17 airframe couldn't stick around longer in greater
civilian duties. I think they're one of the most majestic airplanes ever
flown.

Well, it was an old design even during the war. B-17's were commonly used
in firebombing until the 1970's. Zillions of them were sold as surplus
around the world. I, for one, thought it remarkable that people would fly
in a plane where the official starting procedure required a crewman to
stand next to each engine with a fire extinguisher.

I think we should all marvel that there are so many of them still flying.
How many other planes designed in the 1930's are still around?