Imagine a crew of 36 airplane buffs and assorted idlers pacing the patio of the 94th Aero Squadron restaurant on Milwaukee Avenue near Palwaukee Airport, gazing south, then east, squinting through a dipping August sun like so many refugees waiting on the plane to Lisbon.
Only this is 1999 not 1943, and the Collings Foundation’s restored B-17G and B-24J Liberator bombers are running 22 minutes late on their hop from Indianapolis.
Worried? No, not even close.
Young families wander the property. The cooks stick their heads out of the kitchen for a look-see. A few junior high school girls practice cheerleading moves, while grandfathers grab a little shade under the trees.
And you knew there’d be at least one eccentric in the crowd. You’ve seen him before. At Oshkosh it’s the jamoke who dresses like Jimmy Stewart in “Strategic Air Command” and hangs around the P-51 Mustang hoping you’ll take his picture. Here, at the north end of Palwaukee, we have Mr. CIA Operative, decked out in black T-shirt, black jeans, smoked aviator shades and a U.S. belt buckle. He won’t speak, won’t make eye contact or crack a smile.
No time for foolishness, not on this mission. There’s a perimeter fence to inspect and secure, and you never know, that third grader in the Sammy Sosa jersey might be a saboteur.
The announcement brings welcome relief: The planes are five minutes out, approaching from the southeast.
Lance Frasier is a 73-year-old, World War II vet from Wheaton who served in Japan in the Occupation; he picks up the B-17 coming over the horizon. “Looks like a later model,” he says. “Probably a G or an H, from his gun placements. Come on, baby. Get it down.”
The B-17G makes two passes before dropping its gear and landing east to west. It is slower and smaller than it appears in newsfilm and WWII movies. The old “Flying Fortress” has a top speed of 250 miles per hour, and, at 74 feet, is dwarfed by modern airliners.
But what a landing!
The pilot wheels her gently to a fenced-off area next to the restaurant and is soon joined by the B-24J Liberator with its naughty Nose Art image: “The Dragon and His Tail.” (OK, so you’ve got your kid along. So he’ll see a naked lady and ask touchy questions. That’s why you brought Grandpa . . . to answer those questions.)
Art Kay made the trip from Indy as a passenger on the B-24 and deplanes, shaking his head: “Rob (Collings) brought that plane down easier than any commercial airliner I’ve ever flown in. I felt nothing when we touched down.
“The experience is loud and windy,” he adds. “We had a chase plane back there to keep an eye on us in-flight, and you can only imagine what those guys put up with on their 12-hour bombing runs.”
Volunteer crewmembers secure the planes, which open for public inspection within 10 minutes. The cost is $7 to climb through the innards, and for a $350 donation you can take a short flight in either warbird.
The Collings Foundation, based in Stow, Mass., was established in 1979 to organize and support what founder Robert Collings calls living history events.
The foundation’s Wings of Freedom Aircraft Tour has made 1,100 stops since 1989, usually partnering with local concerns such as the 94th Aero Squadron restaurant.
The Collings Foundation has nine vintage aircraft undergoing restoration in Brooksville and New Smyrna Beach, Fla., and Uvalde and Houston, Texas. All work is done by volunteers, with projects ranging from an A-36 Apache and B-25J Mitchell to an F-4D Phantom.
(Funding comes from private donations and corporate underwriting.)
This B-17G was built in early 1945 at the Long Beach, Calif., facility of the Douglas Aircraft
Co.
The plane would serve with the Air/Sea 1st Rescue squadron and, for 20 years, as a forest fire bomber dropping water and borate for the U.S. Forestry Service.
She was re-created to wartime specs in 1986, taking on the identity of the famed Nine-O-Nine of the 91st Bomb Group, 323rd Squadron.
The original Nine-O-Nine completed 140 bombing raids, including 18 trips over Berlin. She returned to the U.S. with 600 bullet holes and was cut up and sold as scrap.
At 67 feet, the B-24J Liberator, restored as the legendary All American, is shorter but faster, with a maximum speed of 290 m.p.h.
Built in August 1944, this plane originally flew in the South Pacific with the RAF Coastal Command and was eventually sold to the Indian Air Force and kept in service until 1968. The cost of restoration was about $1.3 million.
“There were 18,481 of the B-24s, and ours is the only one left flying anywhere in the world,” says Dee Brush, Collings Foundation coordinator for the event.
Sam Harris of Arlington Heights is peering under the slide-away bomb doors of the B-24. Harris, recovering from a minor stroke suffered in early August, wouldn’t have missed this.
He served as lead bombardier for 11 missions on a B-24 over Europe in 1944 and ’45; Harris has hooked up with Frasier and is explaining how the bombs would often get hung up on bent release mechanisms and how he’d have to kick them loose. (No easy trick: Imagine standing on a 10-inch catwalk with several thousand feet of daylight beneath you, the wind tugging at your britches as you swing out with one boot to knock your stubborn payload from its perch.)
Jeanne and Tom Walich of Highland Park are wandering nearby with their daughter, Alexis, and her friend Alyssa Mosconi, both in the fourth grade. “I hadn’t really planned on this.” Walich admits. “I like reading about history and World War II, and I enjoy airplanes. We stopped by for a drink a few nights ago, and I saw the flier and thought we’d have a look. I think these planes are amazing and the conditions they flew under were unbelievably primitive.”
Wilmette attorney Andy Palmer took a $350 spin in the B-24 two weeks earlier at its Rockford appearance and returned for a second visit.
Palmer’s father saw action as a B-24 waist gunner aboard Dottie’s Double, attached to the 380th Bomb Group in the South Pacific.
“I wanted to experience what Dad felt,” he says. “We were strapped in with belts that would not hold anyone in any sort of accident. They’re designed more to keep us out of the way and in our places until we’re airborne.
“The first engine starts and with a roar it catches, fires and starts turning. The noise is deafening. There is no muffler system on any of the huge Pratt & Whitney power plants. Communication is impossible during flight unless you yell directly into someone’s ear. The crew, of course, had headphones and microphones. They signaled us when we could unbuckle with the ring of a bell. Two rings meant the hour was over and we should return to our seats.”
That’s the cool part of these flights. Passengers such as Palmer are pretty much permitted to roam at will other than in the cockpit. But there are a few snaky maneuvers to make when moving the length of the plane:
“We were told that when we walked through the bomb bay on the catwalk, we must not step off the catwalk. The bomb bay doors will not hold the weight of a person and will peel off their tracks. It’s a long first step . . . anywhere up to 1,500 feet, depending where in the flight we are at the time.”
“Back in the waist, I captured a prime spot by the waist gunner windows and I thought, `This is what dad must have seen for hours on end in 1944 and ’45.’ But for me, it was so different. First, we were over Rockford and not the endless expanse of the South Pacific. Second, nobody’s trying to shoot the plane out from under me. I can enjoy the ride for what it is, a perfect summer afternoon in the Midwest.”
Both waist gunner doors remain open during flight; Palmer took the chance to lean out at 200 m.p.h. and “was whipped around. The wind threatened to take my glasses. I looked down and wondered what the people on the streets thought when they heard the roar of these four huge engines as we sailed over.”
Who knows?
Lance Frasier has the answer: “It’s force of habit. I always look up when a plane passes over. My generation has that reaction. When I see one of these old warbirds in flight it feels like . . . only yesterday.”
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For more information on the bomber tour schedule, visit the Collings Foundation Web site at cyberhighway.net/(tilde)cessna/index.html.
