I work half days on Friday. So I'm in a hurry to get there. I was getting hungry but I didn't want to take the chance missing them coming in. As I passed the airport on North ave, I'm looking across the field to see if they are hear yet. Suddenly the B-17 comes right over the top of me to land. Wow! What are the chances? The B-24 was already there. But the Mustang was flying, landing, flying, landing. Nice. Later learned it was Chuck Gardener getting checked out. Cool.
Got a chance to hang out a bit with HotRodJosh and his parents. Spoke to 2 veterans. 1 was 8th AF, did his 35 missions. Got shot down and he got to meet up with his brothers because he crashed in the area they were in. Pretty neat. The other one was in the 5th AF in the Pacific. Said it was his first flight in a B-24 in 60 years. He asked me why, did I know someone who flew in B-24s? I told him no, I just wanted to shake his hand.
Got to meet and hang out a bit with JimH. Also met Will who was the Mustang pilot. He was thrilled to death to be on the tour on this 10 day stretch. Not only for the joys of tooling around in Betty Jane, but it's a good prep for Reno in a couple weeks. He was one happy camper. Who could blame him!?
Saw the B-17 take off, and they took off to the north this time. (they were flying into the south all afternoon), so I hopped in the car and took off to the other side of the airport so I could see the B-24 take off, close range. It ruled. I didn't quite pick the right spot, but I'll know for next time.
Went back again on Sunday after a car show in time to see them all take off. It was nice to see how many people were there. But I'm glad I went Friday too when there were fewer people.
Here are some pics from Friday and Sunday.
We ended up stopping again on the way home from the car show. It was a good excuse to stop and use the bathroom.
The baby got to at least hear what a B-24, B-17 and P-51 sound like.
more pics here...
http://www.hotrodhucksters.com/chad/collings08
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