Shoo, Shoo, Shoo Baby’s Flight Crew in 1988

[Dan Jones]

Who was the crew that flew the B-17 into Dayton back in 1988?

[Pat]

I’m not positive, but I think the PIC was Bob Hospers, son of “Doc” Hospers who owned B-17G “Chuckie” N3701G. I may be wrong though.

[Dan Jones]

That sounds familiar. I know I have the story at home somewhere, just away at work and just saw some photos of it disassembled at Udvar-Hazy. I was an advocate of just flying it to Dulles but I can’t believe that they flew her into Dayton almost forty years ago now. Wow - time flies!

[JimH]

Paul McDuffy was the Captain in attendance…I can’t remember the other crew names off the top of my head.

Jim

[17f]

Pilot was Doc Hospers; Maj. Quinton Smith, 326th MAS, co-pilot; Robert Hospers, flight engineer; Fred Street, mechanic.

I'll post scans / pics from the event program as soon as I figure how...

[17f]

I hate technology...

[JimH]

Some photos I took that day. 99.9% sure Doc’s son was in the left seat. Some of the original crew was waiting, hence McDuffie. Ron Runyon in his Mustang (now comfortably numb) and I believe Baby Duck escorted her in. They didn’t land. Dan Patterson would be the guy to talk to, I believe he was there documenting the arrival for the Museum. I remember the landing, he was hot and really smoked the tires braking. Hard to believe that was so long ago.

Jim

Attachments

[JohnB]

According to the monograph "Shoo Shoo Baby, A Lucky Lady of the Sky by George Merva
the delivery crew on Oct 13, 1988 was:
pilot Robert Hospers, co-pilot Quentin Smith, Fred Street was flight engineer..
"Doc" Hospers could not fly it because he was on crutches following back surgery.

It also said there were passengers aboard from the restoration team: Tom Corbell, Vic Rosica, Dan Vasey, and Ray McCloskey.
All of those mentioned, plus Fred Smith and Terry Grim, were aboard the test flight on Aug. 14, 1988.

Did they do more than one test flight? That seems like a lot of people for a post restoration test mission.

The book was sold for years at the museum gift shop, I bought mine in 1993-4. It features historical shots of the aircraft as well as large format color interior photos of the restored aircraft.
As previously mentioned, the excellent photos were done by Cincinnati photographer Dan Patterson (who signed my copy).

There are probably some in Dayton area used book stores (which have an unusual number of aviation books).

I enjoyed looking at SSB every time I went to the museum. Once, I was invited to a VIP open cockpit event, I made it a point to sit in her right seat.
Why right?
That's where Bert Stiles sat on a mission.