Flying In A Fully Restored WWll B-17

Early Friday morning the strong storms woke me early and I could not go back to sleep so I decided to do some digital housekeeping by dumping trash from my hard drives and sifting through my backups. I was delighted to find these images that document my once in a lifetime flight on one of the few B-17’s flying today. I thought these photos were lost forever having not seeing them for years.


Each year The Collings Foundation makes their "Wings Of Freedom" national tour featuring some of the rare old warbirds that still fly today.

The Collings tour makes an annual stop at the nearby Porter County Airport in late July. They were here earlier in the week and departed Wednesday. I did not go to take photos as I do each year to add to the blog since it’s already been done a few times.

In 2001 I went for the first time to take photos and ended up actually going for a 45-minute ride on their B-17. I had my company’s digital camera with me at the time but failed to realize the battery was low and was only able to grab a few in-flight shots. It was a real surprise to find these few images in my archive that I had not been able to locate for years.

My flight aboard the “109” cost $350 in 2001, a small price to pay to actually fly in a piece of history. Today the same flight costs $475 so I got a deal.

Ten of us climbed on board through a small hatch in the waist section. The first thing I noticed was the thin aluminum skin and support structure where cables used to control the aircraft were in plain view.

Against each side were five small, crude plywood seats against the side next to each other not raised but on the floor. We were told that the engines would not start until we were all seated and buckled in. It was very hot and sweaty in there. Seemed like forever before they started those giant radial engines



On board the engines coughed, sputtered and eventually started one by one until all four were purring. The vintage aircraft began to move but we could not see a thing sitting strapped to the plywood bolted to the floor.

We taxied toward the runway and came to a halt. We were told this was regular procedure in order to gain the proper oil pressure in the engines.

Not being able to look out a window we turned onto the runway where the pilot gunned the engines with wheel brakes engaged. When the pilot disengaged the brakes we lumbered down the runway. As soon as we left the ground we were cleared to unbuckle and walk about the aircraft. Just. Wow.


I peered out the waist gunner’s window over the .50 caliber machine gun and let my imagination run wild. Our maximum altitude was assigned at 2500 feet.

There is a very narrow catwalk that leads from the waist section to the control area. They had dummy bombs on board and I was amazed how few bombs each plane could carry. Even more surprising was how small the B-17 was.


The pilot and co pilot were seated on their own platform and we were not allowed into the actual cockpit. There was an open hole on the top of the plane so I stuck my head out and immediately lost my ball cap. If I remember correctly we were flying along at about 250 mph.


I poked my head into the cockpit area to grab a shot.


Soon, two other passengers came from the nose area and signaled it was our turn. We flew along the southern coast of Lake Michigan where every beach goer and boater could be seen looking up and pointing. While over land autos pulled over to watch in amazement.


When I had my turn to sit in the bombardier seat we were flying over the U.S. Steel mill in Gary IN. I was able to look through the bombsight and see what probably soiled many a bombardier flight suit. Bombing industry in Germany was the main duty of bombers in WWll, but at a much higher altitude than 2500 ft. It was. Simply. Breathtaking.

45 minutes went by like 5 minutes and we soon we were ordered to sit down and buckle up for landing.


I admit there was some nervousness on my behalf. While this historical gem was completely restored I had my reservations. We were flying low and slow and had no parachutes. Besides, at 2500 ft. a parachute wouldn’t do much good.

I had a certain amount of concern should the unthinkable happen, such as what happened to this other restored B-17 that went down in a western Chicago suburb over a month ago.


It looked bad but everyone walked away.

I highly recommend taking a flight like this to anyone else who loves WWll history and watching old war movies like Twelve O’Clock High. There’s nothing like almost being there while being there at the same time.