Yesterday a B-17 crashed in Conn. I remember in the mid 90's being a news videographer at Republic Airport getting on a B-17 that was owned by some Texan.
At that time not so many were airworthy, and this one owner wanted to keep his plane flying, while this preservationist wanted to keep the plane grounded. So that was the two sides of the story.
I remember being on the tarmac and being told the obvious, "Avoid getting hit by a propeller." Pretty much it was the same scene from "Casablanca" except I'm carrying a huge Igamami videocamera and a one-inch U-matic deck. At that time Sony-Beta was a recent development.
So my place for takeoff and landing was wedging myself behind the pilot's seat on the floor. After takeoff I went to the rear of the plane along a "gangplank," and earlier I had been warned not to step elsewhere because I would put a hole in the plane. Pretty much the skin of the plane was a thin layer of aluminum about as heavy as a beer can.
In the rear was an opening in the fuse-O-lodge where a machine gun could be mounted. The plane's knickname was "Flying Fortress," and from this vantage point I shot footage of this flight over the Long Island suburbs at perhaps helicopter altitude.
We were heading south and around the Jones Beach water tower when the pilot decided to do a sharp banked turn. When a plane banks it looses altitude so we got pretty low, but I'm on the inside of the banked turn, and I came pretty close to falling out of the plane. I also for a moment thought I would ditch the expensive broadcast quality camera to save my life.
On the news last night they said that perhaps 50 B-17's exist today. Back then in the mid 90's only a handful were still airworthy. That is still possibly true today.
It was reported that passengers on the crashed plane paid $450.00 for the thrill. It was said that the pilot made a wide turn. I assume this was to mitigate loosing altitude.
Cal
