The Newsletter for the Superformance Owners Group May 15, 2008 Volume 8, Number 2 FLIGHT OF AN ANCIENT WARRIOR The Collins Foundation B-17 “Nine-O-Nine” over Charlotte September 8, 1995. Taken from the B-24 Chase Plane. Prelude I graduated from college and went to work at Pratt and Perhaps you think it a bit odd that a story about a B-17 Whitney just as the piston engines were being replaced would show up in a Cobra newsletter. Not as odd as you by jets. I was privileged to work on such incredible may think. Many Cobra owners were born during or just aircraft as the F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, B-1 Lancer, and after Word War II when the American love affairs with others. But my heart will always belong to the P-51 airplanes and automobiles were closely intertwined. Mustang, the P-38 Lightning, the F4U Corsair, the B-25 Both are in our blood. Mitchell, and the B-17 Flying Fortress – the machines that served us well as we fought to save our world. Born in Charlotte North Carolina during the first year of the war, I was raised on a steady diet of victory through One September day in 1995 I got to live the dream of a airpower and later as Detroit caught the wave, a steady lifetime. When I got home I wrote down this story so diet of V8 muscle that brought that feeling of freedom that I would always have the memory just as it and power and yes even salvation home to our garages. happened. The sound of a big piston engine pounding out the horsepower moves me like no other. And many of my generation share that feeling. Second Strike Page 2 The Newsletter for the Superformance Owners Group January 17, 2008 propellers were built in Windsor Locks, just a few miles Flight of an Ancient Warrior from where my wife was born and raised. Ancient is a relative term. Both the ancient warrior and I were born during the Second World War. The life The nose guns and chin turret are there, added later in expectancy of people is normally measured in decades. the war to ward off the devastating head on attacks that During the early years of the war, the life expectancy of the German ME 109 and FW 190 fighter pilots favored. a B-17 and its crew was The top turret defends measured in missions. against frontal attacks and Fully half were not from diving attacks out of expected to survive their the sun, the only place a allotted 25 missions fighter can hide on the intact. Only a handful of clear days favored for B-17’s survive today and bombing missions. The few of those are still waist guns, once open, flying. were closed in later models like this one to The B-17 was the first protect the waist gunners strategic bomber used in from the lashing fifty the war and contributed degree below zero winds perhaps more than any at 30,000 feet where the other aircraft to the B-17 flew to escape the destruction of the Third Nine-O-Nine nose art and combat record flack thrown up by the Reich and the end of the German anti-aircraft war in Europe. I am old enough to have friends who gunners. The ball turret in the belly rotates 360 degrees flew these winged warriors in the war. I have heard their and deflects a full 90 degrees to protect the under belly. stories. They are not tales of glory. They are tales of The gunner can also track and destroy fighters diving courage in the face of fear and friendship born of under the B-17 after an attack. incredible danger and hardship. They are tales of survival. Since I was a The tail gunner sits alone young child, I have been in cramped quarters fascinated by these now where the fuselage tapers ancient warriors. Today, I to its conclusion under the have been given the enormous tail. No chance of a lifetime to fly sophisticated turret here. in one along with a crew The two 50 caliber of three and six other machine guns poke their passengers. barrels through a canvas boot. The gunner holds The ancient warrior the grips in his hands and sitting on the runway in aims the guns through a front of me is one of the crude gun sight outside best remaining examples the small Plexiglas cabin of the B-17. It has been barely large enough to fully restored and appears The ball turret. A tight fit even for compact limber young men. hold his head. much as it did when it rolled off the assembly line 50 years ago. The Wright We enter the ancient warrior through the crew entry Cyclone engines leak oil on the runway just as they did door in the rear of the fuselage. We remove the hatch in then, for these were not sophisticated aircraft. They the top of the fuselage for ventilation. The hatch was were blunt instruments of war, purpose built and flown used to provide one more gun location. We are assigned in anger. No room for frills. The Hamilton Standard “seats” in the waist gunners’ area and we buckle in for Second Strike Page 3 The Newsletter for the Superformance Owners Group January 17, 2008 take off. Our seats are actually pads laid against the gunner. It pumps up and down as the ancient warrior fuselage skin and on the eighteen inch walkway down moves over the undulations in the runway. The pilot the center of the fuselage. The safety belts are secured stops and locks the brakes. He runs each engine up to to the exposed fuselage structure. The afternoon sun full power in turn to check operation of the fuel system streams through the hatch and down through the and twin magnetos. The exhaust is muffled only by its fuselage. passage through the turbo superchargers. The noise is deafening. The ancient Strapped to the floor we warrior shakes violently. cannot see the engines We are again reminded start, but we can hear that this is a raw, visceral them. The starter motor warplane. whines against massive pistons being forced to At last, brakes are off and compress the air in their we are rolling. The four cylinders. There are nine 1,500 horsepower engines such cylinders in each of and the broad wings have the four 1,800 cubic inch us airborne quickly. At engines. Each of the once, everyone releases thirty six cylinders alone their safety belts and is larger than the entire scrambles into position. engine in my car. I take We stand in the open out my ear plugs. I want Lift off hatch and watch the to hear every sound. The Charlotte airport shrink propeller turns very slowly at first. The first cylinder behind the massive vertical stabilizer, the wind ripping lights off. Others begin to catch in a ragged beat that at our heads. sends great clouds of oil smoke and unburned high I go forward, across the narrow catwalk through the octane aviation fuel billowing through the prop wash. bomb bay. Earlier in the day, a combat veteran told me The props catch the of walking out onto the smoke and send part of it catwalk in flight with the through the open hatch bomb bay doors open to where the sunlight catches free a hung bomb, it. The other three engines knowing that he had to start in turn. The ancient free it so that they could warrior shakes from the land without dying. pounding of the pistons. The guttural sound, the The structure for the top smoke, the smell, the turret blocks my exit from feeling. It is a symphony the bomb bay. I stoop and of the senses. The turn sideways and adrenaline is flowing. I squeeze around. In look at the other combat, the top turret passengers. We are all gunner would have been grinning like school boys. standing here and the “Damn”, every body is At altitude in the multi-tasking hot seat Cheek gunner, nose gunner, and bombardier structure would have muttering under their been rotating as he breath, then out loud. tracked German fighters. “This is going to be a flight!” I drop down into the passage way between the pilot and co-pilot and crawl on a walk way up to the nose of the The pilot taxis onto the runway. The strut for the rear plane. I work my way into the bombardier’s chair, more wheel interrupts the short space between us and the tail a short stool actually, and turn to face forward. All I can Second Strike Page 4 The Newsletter for the Superformance Owners Group January 17, 2008 see is a Plexiglas nose bubble and beyond it the ground pick out the munitions shops from the schools. and the Charlotte skyline. A truly magnificent view marred only by the remains of a few fat June bugs who I crawl back to the cockpit and stand in the top turret. tried to out run the old warrior and failed. The twin 50 caliber machine guns flank my ears. There would be no trouble To the right is the remote telling when they were gunner’s grip for the chin firing. The Plexiglas turret. The bombardier dome provides an swings it into place to excellent view in all control and fire the chin directions. Above and to turret.