Took a ride on the Madras Maiden recently and had a great time.
Plane was manufactured late in WWII and did not see combat, but was used for recon. Apparently it is the only G model B-17 flying these days of the 10 (out of 12,000+ built) still flying.
The ride was VERY different from the B-29 experience. After takeoff had nearly full access to interior and crawled into nose bubble, carefully traversed bomb bay catwalk, and pretended to strafe Omaha from a rather scary 50 caliber mid fuselage mounted machine gun.
The plane is VERY industrial on the inside. Very few (don't recall any actually) handholds and sharp edges everywhere. And they were hard to avoid, we were around 1000' altitude and flight was rather bumpy. Also, I'm a 6 footer, and no internal dimension of the plane seemed anywhere close to that.
And, the plane isn't and could never be pressurized. Holes in fuselage for gun slits, big hole in the back for the rear landing gear, ventilation ports, and gaps in sheeting abound. LOL, I've heard many tire screeches of planes touching down on runways, this is the first time I've smelled one. Wow, intense burning rubber odor persisted nearly all the way back to the loading area !!!
Later on started getting a stiff neck, and then considerable aching in legs. It was quite a work out moving around the plane and flexing to avoid cracking head open on beams and struts and plumbing fittings and cables while the plane is bouncing around vigorously, and I am running camcorder and trying to stabilize the shot too.
And while I wasn't that terrified, it was such an unusual and exciting experience, it was just physically draining.
One good surprise was, while it was noisy inside, it wasn't as loud as I expected. I could talk with others if they were close. During briefing they noted the turbochargers on the engines had the beneficial effect of really muffling the engine sound.
The plane seemed really fast too. Much greater sensation of speed than the B-29, which is even more curious as the B-17 is far more difficult to look out of.
I was in rear of cockpit during takeoff, but facing backwards, and no view. I did hold camera up and aimed out window but footage is not the best.
I did manage to be in nose gun bubble while we flew over downtown Omaha, it was SPECTACULAR !!
Plane was manufactured late in WWII and did not see combat, but was used for recon. Apparently it is the only G model B-17 flying these days of the 10 (out of 12,000+ built) still flying.
The ride was VERY different from the B-29 experience. After takeoff had nearly full access to interior and crawled into nose bubble, carefully traversed bomb bay catwalk, and pretended to strafe Omaha from a rather scary 50 caliber mid fuselage mounted machine gun.
The plane is VERY industrial on the inside. Very few (don't recall any actually) handholds and sharp edges everywhere. And they were hard to avoid, we were around 1000' altitude and flight was rather bumpy. Also, I'm a 6 footer, and no internal dimension of the plane seemed anywhere close to that.
And, the plane isn't and could never be pressurized. Holes in fuselage for gun slits, big hole in the back for the rear landing gear, ventilation ports, and gaps in sheeting abound. LOL, I've heard many tire screeches of planes touching down on runways, this is the first time I've smelled one. Wow, intense burning rubber odor persisted nearly all the way back to the loading area !!!
Later on started getting a stiff neck, and then considerable aching in legs. It was quite a work out moving around the plane and flexing to avoid cracking head open on beams and struts and plumbing fittings and cables while the plane is bouncing around vigorously, and I am running camcorder and trying to stabilize the shot too.
And while I wasn't that terrified, it was such an unusual and exciting experience, it was just physically draining.
One good surprise was, while it was noisy inside, it wasn't as loud as I expected. I could talk with others if they were close. During briefing they noted the turbochargers on the engines had the beneficial effect of really muffling the engine sound.
The plane seemed really fast too. Much greater sensation of speed than the B-29, which is even more curious as the B-17 is far more difficult to look out of.
I was in rear of cockpit during takeoff, but facing backwards, and no view. I did hold camera up and aimed out window but footage is not the best.
I did manage to be in nose gun bubble while we flew over downtown Omaha, it was SPECTACULAR !!
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