There is something about planes that appeals so much to my imagination I feel like a kid when viewing them. Add to that an appreciation of history and a genuine fascination with a turbulent era romanticized by film and television, I felt privileged to be able to view an amalgamation of these pleasures with a trip to the Planes of Fame Air Museum at the Chino Airport in California a couple Sundays ago. Having above just expressed my love for both World War II and aviation, it is ironic that this was my first trip to the Museum located a mere twenty minutes from my house. What can I say? Some mysteries in life just can't be explained. . .
My dad and me, and my nephew and his friend started the 35 degree morning off with steady rounds of Twenty Questions on the drive down to the airport. After a hearty, albeit greasy, breakfast at Flo's Airport Cafe, we were ready for a full day of gawking at planes. Good thing I brought my camera!
By far, the best part of the day was visiting the B-17G Flying Fortress display. Not only did we have the pleasure of viewing this magnificent plane, but we also met two gentlemen, Frank and Wilbur, volunteers at the museum and veterans of the Second World War. Wilbur actually served as a ball turret gunner on a B-17 named Kismet, flying 30 missions including 2 during D-Day until his tour was ended after catching a piece of flak over Munich.
A sign by the plane said crews of B-17s had to endure long hours and temperatures down to -50 degrees. While the flight suits looked warm, my dad and I didn't think they looked
that warm. It turns out, those flight suits were like electric blankets requiring a crewman to plug-in to stay toasty. With some of the missions lasting over nine hours my dad asked how one went to the bathroom. Wilbur said they had tubes they hooked up to. Unfortunately, his plane wasn't equipped for such. So, he took it upon himself and headed over to the plane junkyard and stripped the parts needed. Now that's thinkin'!
Wilbur's 18th mission began with an early morning formation in the dark in preparation for the D-Day landing. Being the belly gunner, Wilbur had a spectacular view of the world below. Due to cloud cover, though, he wasn't able to see much on June 6, but a break in the weather on the second day gave him a glimpse of the massive amounts of ships and troops still moving in towards shore. He still seemed to be awed by the sheer scope and magnitude of the Allied invasion force.
Speaking of awe, both Frank and Wilbur still try to figure out how we managed to move enough supplies and fuel to sustain our war efforts. Each engine of the B-17 used an average of fifty gallons of diesel per hour. Just the act of taking off and forming up sometimes took up to two hours and must have burned up huge amounts of fuel.
An interesting thing that Wilbur pointed out were the blue lights on the tail wing. On the underside of the wing, right below the light was a wooden plug. Wilbur explained that this was so wing replacements need not be side specific. If your left tail wing got shot up and the only replacement available was a right wing, you just flipped the thing over and switched the blue lights and wooden plugs. Brilliant. I love little details like this.
The plan is to get this B-17 up and running again, but the restoration process is slow mainly due to lack of funding. Volunteer mechanics donate time when available, and many of the parts like exterior paneling need to be manufactured on site. Currently, work is being done on revamping the interior of the bomber so that people can get inside and look around.
I could have spent the rest of the day soaking up info from Frank and Wilbur, but we had more planes to see, and the kids were getting a bit restless. Well, I just realized it'd be really boring for me to describe walking around and staring at planes for the rest of the day, so. . .
For those interested, here is a
link to a slideshow of the numerous pics I snapped. Mind you, I am not a photographer. There were a ton of planes and I had to resist snapping a pic of every single one. I'd like to note that a lot of these planes had oil pans underneath them--meaning they are kept in flyable condition and get taken out and flown on a regular basis. There was no set schedule for which planes would go, you just kinda had to be in the right place at the right time. Well, for us, when we came out of one of the last hangars we spotted a P-51 Mustang ready to taxi out to the runway. The Mustang is one of my favorite warbirds of all time. To see and hear the engine fire up and see the plane to take off was icing on the cake of a spectacular day!
