Boeing Niner Zero Niner AwwwYEAH!

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Question:

That’s what I think. The Germans used disposable slave labor so bombing railyards just caused delays while they rounded up more prisoners to do the repairs, BUT, it can be argued, every factory that was built was X-number of fighter planes, tanks, bullets, ball bearings, rifles, submarines or other equipment that didn’t make it to the front line to reenforce the German forces. If the bombing campaign did nothing but curtail the growth or resupply of the German infantry and Panzer divisions, it saved American lives on the ground. I have photographs of bf109s destroyed in the factories by allied bombing raids. Those 109s never left the ground to shoot down folks like my grandfather, so calling the air campaign a complete failure is a disservice to not only the guys who endured the flak guns and FW-190s and Me262s in the air war, but the guys on the ground who didn’t have to face those Tigers, artillery, etc. -c

Response:

If it was effective, why did Germany manage to produce the greatest amount of war related materials late in the war when the Allied bombing was at it’s greatest effectiveness? Shouldn’t things have been the other way around? Corky Scott

What is your source for German production in the above statement?

Response:

Inhuman? Yes. Ineffective? No. If it was effective, why did Germany manage to produce the greatest amount of war related materials late in the war when the Allied bombing was at it’s greatest effectiveness? Shouldn’t things have been the other way around?

Well, for one thing, the bombing didn’t reach it’s peak until ‘44 either. Most British bombing prior to the adoption of the area bombing strategy in early 1942 was woefully ineffective. In addition, Bomber Command had only a little over 300 bombers by early ‘42, most of which were twins. 1942 saw a gradual buildup of squadrons in Bomber Command, the introduction of navaids such as "Gee", and the gradual shift to heavies such as the Lancaster and Stirling. The U.S. wasn’t even in the picture in ‘42 – we were still building bases and running training missions. Early ‘43 saw Bomber Command really beginning to work seriously on the area bombing campaign. The USAAF started bombing targets in France. By second quarter ‘43, the USAAF was seriously working on the problem of fighter escort, starting out with Spitfires borrowed from the RAF, but the worst losses ever suffered were taken in October of that year going after targets which were outside fighter range. The P-51 was brought into the theater in November, but it was not until 1944 that enough squadrons were available to be effective. One can almost say that German production fell just as soon as we were able to regularly put several hundred to a thousand plus bombers over their cities, but, of course, both the buildup of force and the damage increases were gradual. George Patterson None of us is as dumb as all of us.

Response:

The postwar strategic bombing assesement survey. It basically shredded the hallowed tenents that founded the US strategic bombing campaign. Here is the main conclusion: Aviation: "In 1944 the German air force is reported to have accepted a total of 39,807 aircraft of all types — compared with 8,295 in 1939, or 15,596 in 1942 before the plants suffered any attack." According to the report, almost none of the aircraft produced in 1944 were used in combat and some may have been imaginary. Armor production "reached its wartime peak in December 1944, when 1,854 tanks and armored vehicles were produced. This industry continued to have relatively high production through February 1945." Ball bearings: "There is no evidence that the attacks on the ball-bearing industry had any measurable effect on essential war production." Steel: The bombing greatly reduced production, but the resulting shortage had no contribution to the defeat. Consumer goods: "In the early years of the war — the soft war period for Germany — civilian consumption remained high. Germans continued to try for both guns and butter. The German people entered the period of the air war well stocked with clothing and other consumer goods. Although most consumer goods became increasingly difficult to obtain, Survey studies show that fairly adequate supplies of clothing were available for those who had been bombed out until the last stages of disorganization. Food, though strictly rationed, was in nutritionally adequate supply throughout the war. The Germans’ diet had about the same calories as the British." The survey concluded that one reason German production rose in so many areas was in part that the German economy did not go on a complete war footing until late 1942 and 1943. Up until then, factories had been on a single shift in many industries and the German economy was generally inefficient and not operating at full capacity. Please note, some aspects of the bombing were very effective. The Oil production bombing, more so than any other aspect, hugely curtailed the ability of the German military forces to fight or train to fight. Oil was not originally the top priority of the bomber forces. Primarily the problem with Strategic Bombing, as visualized by the leaders of the Army Air Forces, was that it was an untried concept. Hundreds of thousands of airmen, in both British forces and US forces died trying to accomplish something that turned out to be unattainable, at least in terms of 1940 to 45 technology. Of course, the bombing campaign affected the outcome of the war. It’s just that the manner of the affect wasn’t how the leaders designed it. They thought that if they could destroy the war making industries, Germany would loose it’s ability to wage war. That part did not happen. But Germany spent so much time and effort attempting to stop the bombing campaign, that their ground forces suffered. The skies over Germany became a charnel house for the German aviators and without an effective air force, the German army lost a lot of effectiveness. Germany withdrew enormous numbers of flack guns from the Russian front to ring their cities for protection. This proved dire for the bombers, but also reduced the effectiveness of the German army to counter the hundreds of thousands of tanks the Russians now sent against their forces. In the end, hard as this is to swallow, the huge Russian armies likely would have ground out a victory which would have been even more costly for them than it was, were it not for the air war against Germany. Against the Japanese, any likeness to precision bombing was abandoned when the concept broke against the realities of weather and B-29 maladies. The Strategic Bombing Survey, as you can imagine, became as politicized a document and process as is humanly possible. The Army Air Force was already planning to become an independent military force at that time and made all kinds of interpretations from the survey that they felt justified their existance and the concept of an independent air force. George Ball and John Kenneth Galbreath were members of the bombing survey. Galbreath in particular adamantly argued that the strategic bombing of Germany was far less effective than trumpeted by the leaders of the Army Air Corps. The Air Corps members, of course, disagreed. Corky Scott

Response:

Inhuman? Yes. Ineffective? No.

Response:

Granted, I’m no WWII historian, so I don’t know how the analysis comes out, but…

You cannot simply look at the German production numbers and claim that because they were higher at one point in time than an earlier point in time, the bombing was ineffective. It’s entirely possible that their production would have been even higher than it was, if not for the bombing. If you use the reasoning that production would be constant, and you can judge the effectiveness of the bombing by the production change over time, then the conclusion one must arrive at is that the bombing actually *helped* Germany’s production. Obviously that’s not the case. So, given that Germany took steps to increase production in spite of the bombing, it’s not possible to say just by looking at the total production numbers that the bombing wasn’t effective. You need to look at what Germany’s production would have been without the bombing. That’s where someone like you, with your obviously greater interest and time spent researching the events of WWII comes in. I don’t know what Germany’s production would have been without the bombing. That said, assuming the bombs did manage to hit any component of Germany’s production stream, it seems to me it should be taken as obvious that the bombs hurt the production stream, and that production would have been even higher had the bombing not occurred. Pete

Response:

Read the bit under "Effectiveness". While the bombing was wildly inaccurate (this was known at the time, that’s why tactics were switched to area bombing) it was relentless, with the British bombing at night, the Americans in the day.

It’s also relevant to point out that the allies DID aim for and strike specific targets such as sub pens, shipyards and heavy water plants that would have, in fact, impaired the german war machine more than bombing an oilfield, railyard or even a ball bearing factory. U-boats didn’t get built overnight, and the strikes on the heavy water facilities would be more historically noteworthy, perhaps, had they not happened, allowing that technology to develop. The 96th sent half its group out looking for the battleship Scharnhorst, but couldn’t find it through the overcast so IIRC they bombed Gdynia, Poland instead. -c

Response:

Read the bit under "Effectiveness". While the bombing was wildly inaccurate (this was known at the time, that’s why tactics were switched to area bombing) ….

And, as Bert Harris pointed out (with tongue firmly in cheek), the Americans also opted for area bombing just as soon as they had a big enough bomb. George Patterson None of us is as dumb as all of us.

Response:

PS, the Germans had no need for something as complicated as the Norden bombsight because they did not bomb from great heights nor did they posses a heavy bomber. Their bombers were for the most part, medium battlefield support aircraft and dive bombers.

This may have been how they started out, but it wasn’t how they came to be used. The only reason that Germany didn’t produce heavy 4 engined bombers was their thought that it was more beneficial to produce twice the number of twin engined ones, the limiting factor at the time being engines. Oh, just a quick reference, the inaccuracy of the bombing was detailed in the Butt report of August 1941. http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/bombercommand/buttreport.aspx The report was criticised at the time for potentially lowering morale within Bomber Command, but it turned out to be what was needed. As well as switching to area bombardment, new ways were found to increase bomb accuracy, and some great technological achievents came about. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/air_war_bombers_02.shtml http://modena.intergate.ca/business/boport/cbctv/ Bomber Command’s attacks, initially a mere nuisance, became what Hitler’s armaments minister, Albert Speer, called "the greatest battle that we lost." On May 15, 1940, 93 bombers set out for the Krupp works at Essen. In a later asssessment it was calculated that the proportion of bombs that actually it the vast factories was 3 percent. In contrast, in a massive attack by 705 "heavies" on July 25, 1943, marked by Oboe-equipped Pathfinders, the proportion was assessed at 96 percent. Paul

Response:

Arthur Harris insisted right up to the end of the war that his bombers bomb city centers as the most effective method of bringing the war to the Germans and shorten it, if not cause them to surrender. He was mistaken. For instance, when Hamburg was bombed in late 1943, Bomber Command managed to create the worlds first "firestorm" with it’s bombing tactics. The blaze wiped out the center of Hamburg and killed many thousands of people. Gale force winds feeding the raging fire were so powerful they literally ripped babies from mothers arms and wafted them into the blaze. But did the damage halt Hamburg from producing war materials? Maybe for a week or two.

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Strategic_bombing Read the bit under "Effectiveness". While the bombing was wildly inaccurate (this was known at the time, that’s why tactics were switched to area bombing) it was relentless, with the British bombing at night, the Americans in the day. German survivors said it had a huge affect on them…the couldn’t work effectively and were constantly tired and weary. There was a huge diversion of resources. Production may have increased, but the bombing ensured that the "new" German weapons of mass destruction didn’t come on-line or were severely limited. One of the aircraft under development allegedly went to South America (or the plans did) after the war only to be copied (allegedly) by the Soviets. This became the Mig 15. The relentless bombing was all part of the "total war" that was being unleashed upon Germany. http://makeashorterlink.com/?F30934F98 This makes interesting reading if anyone has the time to read it! Inhuman? Yes. Ineffective? No. Paul

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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Arthur Harris insisted right up to the end of the war that his bombers bomb city centers as the most effective method of bringing the war to the Germans and shorten it, if not cause them to surrender. The really sad part was he had the example of the London Blitz right in front of him. Bombing London did nothing to shake civilian resolve, and probably had the opposite result. for a week or two. A lot of people lost their jobs and their homes because what got destroyed was center city businesses and residences, The British called this ‘Baedeker Bombing,’ i.e., targeting city centers where all the tourist attractions were located.

This was the German tactic: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Baedeker%20Blitz http://modena.intergate.ca/business/boport/cbctv/ Quote: By 1941 cities throughout Europe had been bombed by the Luftwaffe, and helpless refugees had been machine-gunned from the air. These missions were flown with the sole objective of terrorising the civilian population, and breaking any will to resist. In 1940-42 the Luftwaffe devastated London, Coventry, Southampton, Bristol, Plymouth, Sheffield, Liverpool,Cardiff, Glasgow and many other British cities. From April 1942 its raids on Britain were specifically redirected against cities distinguished by three stars in the Baedeker guidebook as being "of outstanding historic or artistic interest." The "three stars" thing is a quote from Nazi propagandist Baron Gustav Braun von Sturm who said: "We shall go out and bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the Baedeker Guide." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1892714.stm Paul

Response:

Zillions of them were sold as surplus around the world.

That is true. Here in Portland there was a guy who bought one to use as the roof of his gas station. He bought one as surplus for $5000, flew it into Portland and wrecked in on landing. The government felt bad for him, and gave him a second one at no cost. It’s still there, except they took the nose off to restore it, so now there’s a nose-less B-17 sitting over what used to be gas station pump islands. -c

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There’s a lot of irony here: The British, by the end of the war, could actually target precision targets with greater accuracy at night than the US bombers could while bombing during daylight from high altitude, but they did not, except for a very few missions, do so. Arthur Harris insisted right up to the end of the war that his bombers bomb city centers as the most effective method of bringing the war to the Germans and shorten it, if not cause them to surrender. He was mistaken. For instance, when Hamburg was bombed in late 1943, Bomber Command managed to create the worlds first "firestorm" with it’s bombing tactics. The blaze wiped out the center of Hamburg and killed many thousands of people. Gale force winds feeding the raging fire were so powerful they literally ripped babies from mothers arms and wafted them into the blaze. But did the damage halt Hamburg from producing war materials? Maybe for a week or two. A lot of people lost their jobs and their homes because what got destroyed was center city businesses and residences, but they were for the most part not producing war materials. The survivors now turned to the factories which were barely touched, and worked there instead. For the remainder of the war, Hamburg continued to contribute mightily to the war machine. Harris thought the decimation of Hamburg was a great victory. He’d show visitors stereo pictures of gutted German cities, implying that the roofless buildings indicated how effective his force of bombers was. He called this type of bombing "dehousing" the German workers and thought that they’d have to leave the cities to survive. Most of the people who lost their homes did not die, they survived and turned to the factories for work and shelter regardless Harris’s conjecture. The British bomber pilots and crew suffered enormously for their effort. Too bad the concept was so flawed. Corky Scott

Response:

The really sad part was he had the example of the London Blitz right in front of him. Bombing London did nothing to shake civilian resolve, and probably had the opposite result. for a week or two. A lot of people lost their jobs and their homes because what got destroyed was center city businesses and residences,

The British called this ‘Baedeker Bombing,’ i.e., targeting city centers where all the tourist attractions were located. but they were for the most part not producing war materials. The survivors now turned to the factories which were barely touched, and

I talked to survivors of the war in Berlin who told me the homeless would pick the longest subway route (between Spandau and Gruenau) and ride all night for a few pennies. The British bomber pilots and crew suffered enormously for their effort. Too bad the concept was so flawed.

The blame for those deaths should include the blunder of sending out the bombers with no fighter protection. Had the allies invested a little more in creating long-range fighters, this would have been quite different.

Response:

Like most legends, the accuracy of the Norden bombsight has been hugely overblown.

But it was an exquisite piece of machine work. The gyroscopes were things of beauty, that could run for half an hour after the power was disconnected. That did not stop the AAF not only from claiming that they exclusively targeted factories and war related industries only, not city centers, even though that was patently false. They also claimed that strategic bombing effectively shortened the war. This despite the fact that Germany’s wartime military production ramped up throughout the war and actually peaked in late 1944 at the absolute height of daylight and nightime bombing.

They did what they could to target factories, but the technology to do this accurately just wasn’t there. American bombing was certainly "precision bombing" compared to the British, nighttime bombing that aimed for easily located targets like large cities. The leaders of the Air Force believed in the fallacy of strategic bombing throughout the 50’s and 60’s and a case I think could be made that they continue to overbelieve in the effectiveness of bombing even today.

When the man who jumped naked into a cactus patch was asked why he would do such a thing, he answered, "it seemed like a good idea at the time." It wasn’t until after WWII, when the bomb damage could be accurately assessed, that the shortcomings of bombing became apparent. In the fifties, strategic bombing meant nuking whole cities, and the horror of that just might have kept the Cold War cold, so it may have been quite successful indeed. By the sixties, "smart bombs" were coming into existence, and nowadays armies can hit individual buildings from the other side of the world, so it’s not anywhere near the same as it was in the forties.

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but it’s sad that the B-17 airframe couldn’t stick around longer in greater civilian duties. I think they’re one of the most majestic airplanes ever flown.

Well, it was an old design even during the war. B-17’s were commonly used in firebombing until the 1970’s. Zillions of them were sold as surplus around the world. I, for one, thought it remarkable that people would fly in a plane where the official starting procedure required a crewman to stand next to each engine with a fire extinguisher. I think we should all marvel that there are so many of them still flying. How many other planes designed in the 1930’s are still around?

Response:

Coolest one I ever saw was the guppy, cruising down the Hudson corridor at, oh, 600-700 feet. That’s also a view not to be forgotten.

They had a Guppy or SuperGuppy (used to haul Atlas rockets) at the Tillamook Air Museum. Can you believe the coastal wind PUSHED the airplane against the blimp hangar? Minor damage, but still amazing. -c

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I’m thankful I didn’t have to fly one in combat. B-17’s are beautiful airplanes but during WWII, they were big slow targets.

Particularly for flak. Every B-17 vet I’ve ever talked to (dozens) said they’d have rather shoot it out with the Luftwaffe than ride through a flak storm on any given day. Over Germany, they generally got both, sometimes simultaneously. All those guys could count the number of people lost and calculate their chances for staying alive till their tour was over, they weren’t good. Seven missions was the average, which is about a month. 25, then 30, then 35 were the requirement to rotate. They had the highest casualty percentages for the allies according to some sources, although I know one veteran who nearly completed two tours. (Had a nut shot off.) The B-24 is a magnifent airplane and worthy of a better place in history, but it’s sad that the B-17 airframe couldn’t stick around longer in greater civilian duties. I think they’re one of the most majestic airplanes ever flown. For Christmas, though, I’d settle for a B-25 or even a P-38. BTW, they gave the bomber visit good press on the news last night. -c

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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – And the pictures used to fascinate me: they had an octagonal "cut-out" of the nose of the aircraft. This was to prevent our enemies from examining purloined pictures to get the details of the Norden bombsite, which was one of the keys to our bombing successes. Flash forward to around 1975… I was working as a disk jockey. We frequently received electronics surplus catalogues at the station, and I was flipping through one while the records were playing. One of the hot items being offered was Norden bombsites, for only $29.95. Interesting, but I really didn’t have any use for one. A couple of hours later I grabbed the copy for a newscast off the teletype, sat down, and started reading. At the end of the copy there were always a few very short stories to enable us to properly time our newscasts. I was running a little short so I started reading these filler stories. And one of these filler stories turned out to be interesting: it seems that one of the men who was part of a plot to steal the Norden bombsight during the War had just been released from prison. I thought there was a certain irony that this guy had spent more than 30 years in prison for trying to steal something I could now buy for less than $30!

Like most legends, the accuracy of the Norden bombsight has been hugely overblown. The Norden was developed prior to WWII and it was fiendishly difficult to manufacture due to the high number of close tolerance fittings, bearings and shafts that went into it. Plus, it was extremely intolerant of dust and shocks which are endemic in a combat zone of course, not to mention the constant upkeep it required while in the combat zone, which was limited in that there were only so many expert technicians and a lot of sights. In addition, the training for the use of the sight occured in the desert southwest where flying weather was nearly perfect. The bombing runs were conducted at altitudes normally lower than 10,000 feet. So the target was visible to the crews for a long time during the approach, the altitude at which they bombed was very low compared to the height they would bomb from in actual combat, and nothing disturbed the bomb run. In actual combat, the heavy bomber crews found things VERY different. They bombed from *at least* 22,000 feet (many times they were higher than that), they almost never actually saw the primary target due to wretched northern European weather and with the Norden you actually had to SEE the target in order to hit it, they were opposed by vicious fighter attacks which disrupted the formations not to mention shooting down numerous bombers, the flak barrages were often deadly accurate and unavoidable, and the bombs themselves were not aerodynamically very stable and often wafted away from their intended target. In addition there was the major problem with daylight bombing over Europe: If every bomber bombed individually as per training, that meant each bomber had to approach the target singly, which was obviously not going to happen as it would string the bombers out for hundreds of miles and leave them all vulnerable to fighters and flack. So the bombers bombed from formation. But while in formation, the bombardiers could not all do their own bomb runs because once the bomb run was initiated, the bombardier flew the airplane through a linkup with the auto pilot and the bombsight. You can’t have each bombardier flying his own bombrun while in tight formation or there would have been many midair collisions. So only the lead bombardier flew the bomb run. Every other bomber in the formation dropped when they saw the lead bomber’s bombs go, or upon radio signal. The accuracy of the drop depended on the skill of the lead bombardier (if he was still alive at that point, the Germans pointedly attacked the lead aircraft in all formations), and how tight the formation was at the time of the group drop. In the meantime the Germans were making smoke upwind of the city, and the first bomb strikes often caused enough smoke to obscure the actual target so that the follow on squadrons had to somewhat blindly toggle into the smoke. Even when the bombers actually accurately hit the intended target, it turned out that machine tools of they day were extremely resistant to blast damage. The Germans also turned out to be extremely good at repairing damage and renuing production. They also got very good at dispersing the factories and moving them underground. The result of all this, and more, was that the heavy bombing campaign was far less effective at doing what the Army Air Force leaders postulated they could do at the outset of the war. The bottom line is that accurate strategic bombing, whether it be daylight or night, visually or radar guided, did not occur except in a few very isolated cases, during WWII. That did not stop the AAF not only from claiming that they exclusively targeted factories and war related industries only, not city centers, even though that was patently false. They also claimed that strategic bombing effectively shortened the war. This despite the fact that Germany’s wartime military production ramped up throughout the war and actually peaked in late 1944 at the absolute height of daylight and nightime bombing. The leaders of the Air Force believed in the fallacy of strategic bombing throughout the 50’s and 60’s and a case I think could be made that they continue to overbelieve in the effectiveness of bombing even today. Corky Scott PS, the Germans had no need for something as complicated as the Norden bombsight because they did not bomb from great heights nor did they posses a heavy bomber. Their bombers were for the most part, medium battlefield support aircraft and dive bombers.

Response:

So close I could see the glint off the plexiglass turret and the black traction tape and red gas caps on her olive wings. 60 years ago, I’d be thankful I wasn’t German. Today I am simply thankful.

I’m thankful I didn’t have to fly one in combat. B-17’s are beautiful airplanes but during WWII, they were big slow targets. The Germans swatted them out of the sky in huge numbers. Several missions resulted in 60 airplanes being shot down out of about 300 that made the mission. During another mission in which more bombers sortied, over 80 were knocked down. That era is gone forever. All those guys could count the number of people lost and calculate their chances for staying alive till their tour was over, they weren’t good. Yet most went anyway. Some didn’t, a lot of men cracked up psychologically and a number of bombers were flown to neutral countries to be interned rather than complete the mission or bail out over enemy territory. Can’t say I blame them, the psychological stress of having to sit their and be shot at without the ability to maneuver to escape the fire must have been enormous. Overall, some 12,000 heavy bombers from both Britain and the US were shot down during the war. Mull that number over for a second, it represents an incredible effort and loss of life. Corky Scott

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My Dad’s brother was one of those "swatted out of the sky". "His" plane was a B-17G, "Quarterback", but for some reason he was flying "Plain Mister Yank" IIRC, when he went down. I was born well after WW II, so I never knew him, but we had some uniforms, his medals, and a few pictures. And the pictures used to fascinate me: they had an octagonal "cut-out" of the nose of the aircraft. This was to prevent our enemies from examining purloined pictures to get the details of the Norden bombsite, which was one of the keys to our bombing successes. Flash forward to around 1975… I was working as a disk jockey. We frequently received electronics surplus catalogues at the station, and I was flipping through one while the records were playing. One of the hot items being offered was Norden bombsites, for only $29.95. Interesting, but I really didn’t have any use for one. A couple of hours later I grabbed the copy for a newscast off the teletype, sat down, and started reading. At the end of the copy there were always a few very short stories to enable us to properly time our newscasts. I was running a little short so I started reading these filler stories. And one of these filler stories turned out to be interesting: it seems that one of the men who was part of a plot to steal the Norden bombsight during the War had just been released from prison. I thought there was a certain irony that this guy had spent more than 30 years in prison for trying to steal something I could now buy for less than $30!

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – So close I could see the glint off the plexiglass turret and the black traction tape and red gas caps on her olive wings. 60 years ago, I’d be thankful I wasn’t German. Today I am simply thankful. I’m thankful I didn’t have to fly one in combat. B-17’s are beautiful airplanes but during WWII, they were big slow targets. The Germans swatted them out of the sky in huge numbers. Several missions resulted in 60 airplanes being shot down out of about 300 that made the mission. During another mission in which more bombers sortied, over 80 were knocked down. That era is gone forever. All those guys could count the number of people lost and calculate their chances for staying alive till their tour was over, they weren’t good. Yet most went anyway. Some didn’t, a lot of men cracked up psychologically and a number of bombers were flown to neutral countries to be interned rather than complete the mission or bail out over enemy territory. Can’t say I blame them, the psychological stress of having to sit their and be shot at without the ability to maneuver to escape the fire must have been enormous. Overall, some 12,000 heavy bombers from both Britain and the US were shot down during the war. Mull that number over for a second, it represents an incredible effort and loss of life. Corky Scott

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Coolest one I ever saw was the guppy, cruising down the Hudson corridor at, oh, 600-700 feet. That’s also a view not to be forgotten. Jose — (for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

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About 6 weeks ago, I was at CNH (Claremont, NH) when a plane called in to announce an over-fly. The transmission went something like: "Claremont traffic, Liberator XXXX is 5 miles to the east, overflying the field at 1000′." I sat and contemplated just what a "Liberator" was, since the only one I was familiar with was the B24. In a few short seconds, a beautiful B-24 swept in over the airport, then headed north. Wish I had my camera. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Today shooting ILS approaches at McMinnville, with the blinder on, I had a close encounter. There was a lot of chatter and people stepping on each other, but I heard one aircraft rumbling calling out over McMinnville looking for the traffic on approach (me). Didn’t catch his call numbers. A few minutes later I was flying outbound from the runway at 2,400 and Delcy said "I have the traffic…whoa! That’s a BIG ASS airplane" and then (’cause I was under the hood and couldn’t see out the window) "Whoa! Look at that! What’s it doing here?" My eyeballs threatened to slither out of their sockets, down my cheeks and out the window, so I raised the blinder and looked… A camera in my head went *snap* and the view was unforgettable. At ten o’clock low to my nose, against the valley floor, was the B-17 Nine-O-Nine. Her red tail and wingtips cut across the yellow and green fields and the black, bending river below, and she passed low and slow; probably a thousand feet, along the instrument approach. So close I could see the glint off the plexiglass turret and the black traction tape and red gas caps on her olive wings. 60 years ago, I’d be thankful I wasn’t German. Today I am simply thankful. We aborted the approach and circled high because she was too close. I tailgated a B-17 Flying Fortress! And didn’t spazz out and auger the plane! She passed around and I got back under the hood. I was flying in the McMinnville pattern with a B-17 and a I had a damned blinder on! She was right out there, and I could not see it. NNNOOOooooo!!! I was freaking out ’cause I’d just seen the Joe DiMaggio of warbirds, AND I still had to turn 180 degrees and fly the approach down to the runway. It turned and banked away, and we were down at about the same altitude then, and her red tail sliced across the landscape again like a bloody fin. Back under the hood and headed for the Newburg VOR, Delcy covered up the directional indicator and the artificial horizon. Harsh. Did one form of approach for Aurora, (nailed it), circled around and did the instrument landing approach. Passed the airfield at about 500′ and she says "Whoa! There’s that airplane again. There’s two of them!" Down on the tarmac at Aurora airfield (next to I-5 south of Newburg) are the WWII B-17 Nine-O-Nine and the B-24 Dragon and Its Tail. It is my not so humble opinion that Nine-O-Nine is the single most beautiful flying aircraft in the entire world. It’s the very same airplane that we rode on with my grandfather on June 17, 1993, which was the happiest I remember seeing him and the first time he’d ridden one since crashing into a French countryside 50 years previous. For years, somehow, the airplane and I always cross paths, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen one flying from above. Awesome! -c

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Very cool! Same B-17 and B-24 that were buzzing my house at 1000 ft. just prior to the Memorial day weekend. I don’t know how many trips I made to the front and back yard when I heard that wonderful growl of multiple radial engines. I had a nice surprise last year when (unknown to me) they were at my home airport after I’d come back from an overnight xc flight. I go to enter the pattern and turning from the 45 for a left downwind, I notice both planes on the ramp. Not something you see every day. Of course, I just had to hang around the airport after I gassed up the plane and tied it down. Glad you got to peek out form under the hood and catch the action. — Jack Allison PP-ASEL, IA Student "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return" - Leonardo Da Vinci

Response:

Today shooting ILS approaches at McMinnville, with the blinder on, I had a close encounter. There was a lot of chatter and people stepping on each other, but I heard one aircraft rumbling calling out over McMinnville looking for the traffic on approach (me). Didn’t catch his call numbers. A few minutes later I was flying outbound from the runway at 2,400 and Delcy said "I have the traffic…whoa! That’s a BIG ASS airplane" and then (’cause I was under the hood and couldn’t see out the window) "Whoa! Look at that! What’s it doing here?" My eyeballs threatened to slither out of their sockets, down my cheeks and out the window, so I raised the blinder and looked… A camera in my head went *snap* and the view was unforgettable. At ten o’clock low to my nose, against the valley floor, was the B-17 Nine-O-Nine. Her red tail and wingtips cut across the yellow and green fields and the black, bending river below, and she passed low and slow; probably a thousand feet, along the instrument approach. So close I could see the glint off the plexiglass turret and the black traction tape and red gas caps on her olive wings. 60 years ago, I’d be thankful I wasn’t German. Today I am simply thankful. We aborted the approach and circled high because she was too close. I tailgated a B-17 Flying Fortress! And didn’t spazz out and auger the plane! She passed around and I got back under the hood. I was flying in the McMinnville pattern with a B-17 and a I had a damned blinder on! She was right out there, and I could not see it. NNNOOOooooo!!! I was freaking out ’cause I’d just seen the Joe DiMaggio of warbirds, AND I still had to turn 180 degrees and fly the approach down to the runway. It turned and banked away, and we were down at about the same altitude then, and her red tail sliced across the landscape again like a bloody fin. Back under the hood and headed for the Newburg VOR, Delcy covered up the directional indicator and the artificial horizon. Harsh. Did one form of approach for Aurora, (nailed it), circled around and did the instrument landing approach. Passed the airfield at about 500′ and she says "Whoa! There’s that airplane again. There’s two of them!" Down on the tarmac at Aurora airfield (next to I-5 south of Newburg) are the WWII B-17 Nine-O-Nine and the B-24 Dragon and Its Tail. It is my not so humble opinion that Nine-O-Nine is the single most beautiful flying aircraft in the entire world. It’s the very same airplane that we rode on with my grandfather on June 17, 1993, which was the happiest I remember seeing him and the first time he’d ridden one since crashing into a French countryside 50 years previous. For years, somehow, the airplane and I always cross paths, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen one flying from above. Awesome! -c

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