Ready For Takeoff

By ANN Warbird Correspondent Tom Griffith

It was no surprise to me that the pilots' checklists were a LOT more involved than those that I'm used to before taking off in a Cessna 150 or 172. B-17 drivers have to be concerned with such things as whether or not the tail wheel was locked, and all that stuff.

See Part Two

They worked together very well, with Stewart asking Tim such things as if we were going to "clear that Cessna on the right" as he taxied.

This monster's wingspan is over 100 feet, and that's a lot of wing to keep track of. I got to hear their radio calls and "chatter," also - this only added to the experience. Tom Owens also added the occasional information to help them get the beast percolating.

My two partners in the rear of the plane were Dudley Anderson and his dad, Dick. Dudley was from my generation and Dick, naturally, was of the Greatest Generation. I learned that Dick had been a B-17 crew chief during WWII, having been called up from the reserves in 1943 and serving until after the War ended. He made it to Europe, but did not fly any combat missions. This is no way detracts from his service to our country - the guys from my dad's generation seem to feel almost guilty if they didn't get shot at during the War. They are ALL heroes to me - Dudley is blessed to have a dad who is not only alive, but to have one who still has his memories intact.

Dudley, Dick and I took numerous photos of not only "Thunder Bird," but of each other, to help memorialize our unforgettable flight. We've already exchanged some of the photos by e-mail. It's always a pleasure to make the acquaintance of, and keep in touch with, fellow warbird nuts.

After we'd taxied to the run-up area and the run-ups had been completed, we were ready to take off and did so shortly thereafter. Running up four engines and cycling four props had been done quickly and efficiently (these adverbs apply to everything that these guys did on our flight). There was no fanfare, or sounds of heavenly music as we began our take-off. I was surprised that our take-off run was rather short. A lighter than military take-off weight, coupled with Galveston's ever-present wind contributed to this rather short take-off roll.

I heard Stewart Dawson, comparing the take-off to that of a Hawker Sea Fury (he gets to fly all kinds of warbirds, lucky stiff!) as we were climbing out - all this, and sarcasm, too! I loved it! Only a few seconds after clearing the runway, we were over the Gulf of Mexico and "T-Bird" made a 90-degree turn to the left (basically to the east) and we flew parallel to Galveston's Seawall and beach.

The day turned out to be only slightly hazy and we could see for miles, as we cruised at 700 to 800 feet (AGL and MSL are the same, here!), bustin' along at 160 mph. The pilots had told us that we had 958 gallons of fuel on board and that we could fly for maybe four hours before we had to land to refuel, but that our flight would be a little shorter than that - about 30 minutes or so. Also, each engine has a tank with 35 gallons of oil, but more on that later.

Dick, Dudley and I were all smiles in the back, and I'd bet that the two guys corralled up in the nose were smiling as well. Thanks to digital cameras with room for hundreds of photos on each card, the three of us were taking pictures right and left.

Excuse me, the two "amateurs" were taking pictures, and I, the professional photojournalist was composing my subjects and taking photographs. OK, OK - I was snapping pictures like a daddy at his daughters' first soccer games (believe me, I have experience doing THIS!).

I also made notes right and left on my trusty little yellow note pad.  Funny thing, though, I've written the first article and this much of this one without having to refer to the notes (I'm sure that ANN readers don't really need to know that we began our take-off roll at 1052 local time [or 1552 Zulu]).

OK, so I had to go to the notes for that bit of minutia. We were given the "OK to roam" message on the intercom, so roam we did.  We were able to go back to the waist area and view the world as it passed by less than 1000 feet below. I naturally blasted a couple of Me-109s, FW-190s, A6M Zeroes and who knows what ELSE out of the sky when I manned each of the two waist .50 cal Browning Machine Guns.

Tim, our copilot, had pointed out during his orientation speech to us that while all of the turrets are functional (the B-17-G has three turrets), the guns in the turrets and other positions were not real (he told us that the receivers were castings and wouldn't function - DARN!) and that we wouldn't be able to fire any point-fifties on our little flight.

The ball turret was off limits, as if a 6 ft 2 inch 195 pound 57 year-old guy could scrunch up and fit into a space that was cramped even for its intended occupant in WWII - a 20-year old, 5 ft 4 inch 125 pound kid!  It's amazing how relatively small this big bomber is inside. I had to stoop over the whole time and crawling around the ball turret and its mounting shaft (whatEVER it's called!) was lots of fun.

Making my way up front was even more fun. There's a VERY narrow walkway through the bomb bay (between the racks of dummy bombs) and I managed to pass through to the front and check out what was going on up on the flight deck.

After I somehow passed through the bomb bay without falling or stumbling, I made my way to the flight deck and observed that Tom Owens was hovering behind Tim and Stewart. He monitored them AND the aircraft. I'm a non-instrument rated private pilot (single-engine land), so I immediately sought out instruments on the panel that I knew something about. All of the important "steam gauge" instruments are duplicated - one set for the pilot and one for the copilot.

The engine gauges are very different, since there has to be four of everything, with most of them providing information for a pair of engines on a single dial or gauge - there were two "hands" or "needles" per gauge, naturally - in each case, the left engines on one gauge and the right engines on the other. There is only one set of engine gauges (as far as I could detect), and it's right in the middle of the panel.

When I looked outside to the right and the left, the big Hamilton Standards were merrily turning to the beautiful music of synchronized Wright Cyclones (BTW, all four engines were built by Studebaker, as Tim had pointed out on our orientation, but I'd already looked for myself).

I observed the prop synchronizing gauges, but it was easier to feel and hear that the props were all a-turnin' pretty much the same RPM. I noticed that whenever we banked, the pilot had to put some muscle into the effort, but then again, this plane doesn't have boosted controls.

I returned to the back, to give Dick a chance to get up front where he'd ridden in B-17s some 60 years ago. Once again, I must note that I was honored to be in the presence of one of my heroes.

In Part Four, we'll see how this trip ends.

FMI: www.lsfm.org