Commerative Air Force Airpower tour

[b17engineer]

I think the B29/B24 Squadron has done an excellent job of keeping us informed, at leastt on Facebook. Maybe they were a little slow this time, but they are always updating their page. Lots of pictures as well.

[Taylor Stevenson]

Do my eyes deceive me, or is there a window where the bombay should be?

LB-30/Pemex conversions as stated above. Though she started out as a B-24A, Lil has a lot of different parts from a wide range of the LB/C/B/RY variants. I think it's kind of cool that she's a flying legacy to the whole Liberator line. There were talks some years ago (when Gary was still with us) of reinstalling the bombay doors etc., but that is a HUGE project that would require all sorts of jigs and, most of all, $$$$. Maybe we will see it someday, but, for now, I'm just thankful we have two flying 24's to experience.

I just checked the social page links on the Airpower page and they all are for a HTML5 publishing platform. In other words the default page for the program, nothing about the CAF.

If you find a glitch with the page or experience a problem with the site (including the HTML5 issue), why not email the webmaster and let them know? As a mostly volunteer group, I think the CAF, the B-29/B-24 Sqn. in particular, has done an excellent job with the resources they have. I'd give them a little more credit than an eye roll. Maybe that's just me though...

Can't wait to see Lil flying again! My 90 year old grandpa and I plan on being some of her first passengers. He was a Flight Engineer on 24's in the 380th BG on Okinawa.

I saw the progress a week or two ago. Lil was really starting to come together. Great work, y'all!

[Steve Nelson]

Here's how Diamond Lil looked on December 29th in the CAF hangar at Addison. The repairs to the nose were coming along nicely and the crew was well into the annual.

She's looking good! What's up with the second nose glazing sitting back by the waist section?

SN

[Pogo]

Here's a before 'n' after shot of the "window" in question. I can't tell what we're looking at in the other picture cited, but I'm pretty sure there's no window in the bomb bay area - Gary was pretty insistent about making this kinda stuff as accurate as possible since it's one of the things that could be made accurate as possible. And make no mistake, the man did his homework before breaking out the can opener.

I personally hope the bomb bay is never returned to Lil, as this particular aircraft didn't have a bomb bay except for an exceedingly brief period very early in her long life. It would be great to see a fully restored B-24A, no question about it, and I often wish her original short nose and cockpit greenhouse could be returned to the front end, but it's really too much to ask given the cost in time and money it would involve.

I consider Diamond Lil a one-off aircraft since it served the entire war as a perpetual prototype of sorts, and I am more than content to celebrate her as such. And for my money, having Witchcraft around makes it a lot easier to do!

Attachments

[bilwor]

As of 4 pm today (Monday) NO Fifi in Tucson.
bill

[kpardon]

As of 4 pm today (Monday) NO Fifi in Tucson.
bill

Mechanical issue kept us on the ground at El Paso a little longer than we thought.

ETA 5:40 pm -- check flightaware -- N529B.

[bilwor]

Thanks for the info Kim, sorry about the problem. Will see it in Tucson the next three days
bill word

[bilwor]

The Tour in Tucson

[Chris]

The tour is in Mesa, Az now at Williams Gateway airport. FIFI, Sentimental Journey, Maid in the Shade, P-51, C-45 and T-6 are there.

[CAPFlyer]

After their ELP leg, they've been doing a good job of filing VFR flightplans and picking it up so that FlightAware can track their progress, so hopefully the guys will continue this and if you sign up (free) you can set an alert to N529B and it'll let you know whenever they're taking off on their next leg of the tour.

[warbirdfinder]

The CAF Air Power Tour will be at Mesa Gateway Airport AZ from March 1 through March 3. It it will move to Deer Valley Airport AZ on March 4 where it will stay through March 6. The B-17 Sentimental Journey and the AZ Wing SNJ-5 will also be there.