Central New Yorkers can see for themselves on Sunday.
It’s quite another, John Ferguson said, to fly in a B-17. “You get all the sights, the sounds, the smells,” he said.
Minutes later, Ferguson demonstrated what he was talking about as he, Bob Hill and Ron Gause, volunteer pilots for the Liberty Foundation, took a dozen members of the local media for a 15-minute flight this morning over Onondaga County in the Liberty Belle, a genuine B-17 bomber and one of only 14 still flying.
Liberty Foundation founder Ron Brooks bought the plane in 2000, restored it and re-christened it the Liberty Belle after the Flying Fortress in which his father served as a tail gunner over Europe during World War II.
The non-profit foundation now takes the plane around the country to about 50 cities a year on average, giving free tours of the craft on the ground and taking passengers paying $430 each ($395 for foundation members) for 30-minute flights.
Syracuse-area residents will get their chance Sunday when the Liberty Belle returns to the Landmark Aviation terminal at Hancock Airport.The crew will fly passengers every hour on the hour from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., then conduct ground tours until 6 p.m. The terminal is at 248 Tuskegee Road, Salina.
The passenger quickly appreciates the discomfort of the men who flew combat missions in a B-17.
The seats, wooden or canvas, run along the sides of the 75-foot-long plane, not across the aisle. The floor is a wooden catwalk in most places. The plane’s ribs and walls are exposed, as are electrical wires and control cables along the ceiling. A 6-footer can stand upright in most places and touch both sides with outstretched arms.
The windows are wider than a passenger jet’s but also have machine guns poking through them.
The hatch is held in place by two web straps and shakes enough to admit some daylight during landings. It is encrusted with signatures of passengers and the names of lost airmen.
Fumes and rain leak into the cabin. The four prop engines grind like a cement mixer while idling and roar like a freight train during takeoff.
It’s possible to walk gingerly through the craft, although a good sense of balance is key to skirting the ball turret and crossing the 8-inch-wide catwalk across the bomb bay. Those who crawl through a narrow passage beneath the cockpit get the best view – out the Plexiglas nose where two more machine guns and the bomb sight are mounted.
One can only imagine how cold it must have been at 24,000 feet and how terrifying the view with enemy fighters and flak all around. Of the 12,732 B-17s built between 1935 and 1945, 4,735 were lost in combat, foundation officials said.
This particular plane never saw combat. It came off the Vega Aircraft Co. production line in May 1945, just as the war was ending in Europe, the B-17’s main operating area. It served as a test platform for aircraft engines and a museum piece before Brooks bought it.