Hey Sarge! Look at this!

[waaytoomuchintothis]

[waaytoomuchintothis]

[strangebrew]

My Dad was flight engineer on Jimmy Stewart's B17.
(Famous actor....................for all the youngsters)

[Z-carfan]

Strangebrew, that is awesome!! My brother (if he was still around) would want to know all the details about that!
I would too, but my brother was an airplane and WW2 history nut. Seeing all these beautiful aircraft remind me of him, very cool!

[TsgtRet]

Waytoo, those are all Collings aircraft, I believe. Beautiful shot. My Dads brother was a waist gunner on B-24s flying out of Italy and I think the B-17 was probably the handsomest "big friend" of the war.

Strangebrew, to those of us that served back a few years ago, that was General Stewart, he stayed in the reserves after the war and made it to BG.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

That's right. That's how I knew they were the exact same planes. That shot came from a corner of Collings website I hadn't noticed when I went looking before. I suspect they do shows together as a group.

My uncle was killed in a B-25, and the guy who was in the cubicle next to me at work flew Hurricanes and Spifires as a RCAF volunteer in the RAF during the Battle of Britain. I've met two waist gunners in my life and both of them were in Italy in B-24s. My marksmanship instructor, Sgt. Haarstrick, was on the other side in WWII and went through awful treatment and distrust to have a lifetime career in the US Army. At my age, I can sit back and realize how many lives I know about that were profoundly influenced by WWII including my own abused childhood, some fewer lives I know about that were part of WWI, four men I knew and talked to at least once a month as a child who were Confederate veterans of the Civil War, to say nothing of the hundreds of Vietnam vets who were my own friends and peers, and the children of my peers who fought in the Middle East in several combat events. It makes the stupid squabbling that the worst politicians constantly try to inspire today look very petty and pointless. What an amazing country this is, to have produced men and women who went to war as citizen soldiers.

[Pappy]

[waaytoomuchintothis]

I know it seems impossible, but when we took the P-51 to Oshkosh, I was so busy I never even got close to having enough time to see that wonderful museum. I don't regret a second of what I did there, but I sure wish I could have seen it in the time allotted on that trip. The owner of the plane flew it to Oshkosh, but I drove the Suburban full of tools and parts. I wasn't that far behind him when I got there because he stopped for fuel several times.

I traded an old main gear brakes set for a new brake set for a P-61 (a bolt-on swap and much better brakes). That was possible only because the "Fly Market" at Oshkosh attracts such a huge gathering of warbird parts. That was more or less my role with the plane. I found things and fixed things. Being a research mole, I found out all kinds of things that made life easier with a 60 year old airplane. We had the full set of US Army Air Corps manuals for the P-51D which took up a shelf that ran the length of the hanger wall. We had a spare Merlin, and only had to service the Hamilton Standard prop one time (thank god- what a chore!). We got our hands on an old Navy towmotor with the bridle for tail draggers, and we kept scaffolding for me to service the engine, and an overhead traveller crane for tasks like lifting the tail, and that awful 20 hour stretch servicing the prop. It was a first class operation all the way, with an AT-6, the P-51, and the Piper Cherokee that was used like a flying Suburban to fetch parts. I was the weak link, being not only an amateur whose work had to be checked by pros, but also the poorest guy in the hanger. I was doing a Master's at the time, living in married student housing with a wife and two kids. I can't believe I once had that kind of energy.

Shortly after I graduated and moved away, they got a Corsair, which can be a death trap for those who think they have mastered flying it (just like the old Beech Staggerwing). Its a windmill with a giant radial engine, and somewhere behind all that there's an airplane. I was relieved they didn't get it while I was there. Besides being insanely fast and maneuverable, it is complicated beyond belief. So much advanced beyond planes I know about, I'd have to study for months to do anything.

[ccobra]

You don't really see the size of the P51 until it is placed in front of an A10. I have seen it at Fresno Airport and noticed it was small but I didn't realize how small until I seen this picture. But, can you imagine this power together?