By ANN Warbird Correspondent, Tom Griffith

I finally got another chance for the 'flight of a lifetime!' No, I didn't get offered a ride on a Russian Shuttle [Buran] or a USAF B-2 'Spirit' Stealth Bomber. Much better than either of these -- I got another offer to get a B-17 at Scholes Field in Galveston (TX). It would be during the Lone Star Flight Museum's Air Show on April 26. Not just any B-17, mind you, but the LSFMs award-winning Thunder Bird.

Thunder Bird, which flew 116 combat missions over Europe in WWII, has been immortalized by the Keith Ferris mural at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, in an almost-life-sized mural,  "Fortress Under Fire." The plane in which I was scheduled to make my flight is a tribute to the actual B-17 that it depicts. (The actual T-Bird was scrapped in 1945, an ignominious end to a wonderful aircraft.) The present T-Bird had been owned by the French government and was used in photo-mapping; it was sold to the LSFM in 1987 and was restored and flown back to the US from England. It has since occupied what I call the "place of honor" in the LSFM's main hangar, whence it tours the US during the airshow season; and from where it makes frequent flights around the Galveston-Houston area.

Authentic.

Everything about this plane is authentic. The are very few things that are NOT in 100% operational condition: the WWII vintage radio equipment; the dozen .50 Caliber Browning Machine Guns that seem to sprout from all over her, making her official name of "Flying Fortress" very believable --they've been deactivated for some unknown reason. Modern radios and other instruments have been added to make her safe and legal to fly, but other than these minor differences, this plane is ready to go to war.

Saturday, April 26, 2003 turned out to be a beautiful day on the Gulf Coast of Texas and my second chance to fly in the B-17 would not be ruined by weather. Thunder Bird was not parked outside, getting worked on by a swarm of LSFM staff -- a good sign. There were a number of planes in static display out on the ramp in front of the Museum complex, but no B-17. So far, so good.

We made our way out to the flight line and took note of the "usual suspects" for this 13th Annual LSFM Airshow (the Lone Star Flight Museum's spring airshow has a good number of Warbirds both from the Museum, and from the "outside"): B-25/PBJ Mitchell, P-63 King Cobra, Spitfire, F4U Corsair, AD4 Skyraider, TBM Avenger, F8F Bearcat, PT-17/N2S Stearman, AT-6/T-6/SNJ Texan/Harvard and others…but NO B-17 was anywhere in sight...

a partial tire returns...

Then the airshow announcer called our attention to a little vehicle of one sort or another coming along the flight line from our left. It was passing by the crowd, carrying a BIG shredded tire -- he said that this was the tire that was blown out on Thunder Bird earlier, and that the LSFM staff had installed another tire onto her and would be towing her back to the main hangar for a new tire to be installed, and that she'd be flying again before the day was over.

[Rewind to last November when one spark plug (that's ONE of 72 total sparkplugs on the 4 engines) grounded the whole darned B-17. That "little problem" should've been fixed and the plane made airworthy in only an hour or two, but it took all day and it STILL wasn't fixed in time for me to fly on it that day! The broken-off sparkplug just wouldn't budge!]

Blown tire: shouldn't be a problem. I went and found my buddy, LSFM Volunteer Bill Jolliffe, who promptly told me that they had two new ones. At least they wouldn't have to go to Pep Boys or NTB and ask if they had any B-17 tires! About 30 minutes after the announcement of the tire problem, the Museum's big aircraft "tow-truck" towed T-Bird past the airshow crowd.

Then Museum Director Ralph Royce -- himself -- came over to the barricades, grabbed one end of a barricade and swung it out towards the flight line (talk about hands-on leadership!), and asked several hundred folks in the area to move themselves and their chairs out of the way to clear a path for the B-17. The museum's Air Marshals moved several more barricades to make a wide enough path for the Fort to pass through.

The crowd obligingly parted and the B-17 was towed over to the main hangar where a waiting throng of LSFM workers were ready to get to work on her. The enormous wing provided a brief respite from the noontime sun as the B-17 was towed through the crowd.

The LSFM A&Ps and their helpers decided to change both main tires -- the "spare tire" that they'd put on in place of the starboard tire that had blown was already mounted to a "spare rim," so that hadn't take too long for them to fix on the taxiway earlier, before the behemoth was towed past us and into the hangar. This tire was not legal to use for taking off or landing -- it has a spot or two where you could see the threads. Additionally, the left main was, to use FAA terminology, "iffy," and for that reason, T-Bird was going to get two new tires.

During the next four hours, I made maybe seven or eight trips from the flight line to the hangar to check on the progress of the work. Over the course of my frequent trips to check on the work, I saw slow progress: on my second (or was it my third? -- I lost count) visit back to the hangar, the B-17 was up on a total of five jacks (two underneath each wing and one underneath the tail) and the spindles that had formerly mounted the two big tires/rims were bare, except for the inside set of brake shoes. The A&P technicians and their helpers had to man-handle the huge tires onto the rims, and while I didn't get to see this personally, a gentleman by the name of J. R., who sat next to us at the airshow, did. He told me of the monumental struggle of men and simple levers with the monstrous tasks at hand. Being a nuts-and-bolts kind of guy, it was interesting to see the brakes as installed on this big bomber -- it uses dual-shoe brakes on each main wheel, as opposed to disc brakes seen on many other Warbirds. I also got to see the huge roller bearings that are used -- they are definitely a LOT bigger than those that I've replaced or repacked on cars over the years.

I sought out, found and talked with Ralph Royce, who said that it might fly and then again, it might not. I asked if there was a chance to get a ride on something else like I did a few months ago and he told me to check with Valarie Barak. He might be the boss, but he knows who actually runs things: Valarie. I made a bunch of trips all over the place and finally found Valarie, who said that a ride on the Mitchell might be possible if the B-17 didn't get fixed in time, but the best that she could do was to put me on "standby" in case someone didn't show up for their Mitchell ride. (Last year, two guys didn't show up for my Mitchell flight - I would've had to have been dead or in surgery, to have missed such an opportunity!)

It was back out to the flight line and watch more flying, shoot more photos and eat a corndog washed down with strawberry lemonade (who said that Tom Griffith was interested ONLY in Warbirds?) - you know, typical airshow stuff.

My wife spent most of the afternoon sitting by herself (luckily the guy next to her turned out to be a good conversationalist), what with my jumping up to go shoot a series of photos every few minutes and leaving to go check on the progress of the tire changes on the object of my affection.  (I promise that I didn't get in the way of the LSFM staff during my many sojourns to the hangar.)

Long about 4:10 PM, after my second visit in ten minutes, one of the LSFM staff, a nice young woman who hadn't had to put up with my badgering until that time, told me to come back right before 4:30 and, if they were finished with the repairs, we'd fly. During this visit, I noticed the mechanic-types looking underneath the Number 3 Engine (where the right main landing gear, the one which had experienced the blow-out on landing that morning, is attached), inside the landing gear bay, and on and around the GE turbo-supercharger. (Note: on this Fort, the turbos DO work!) They wanted to make sure that when the big tire literally exploded, something mechanical or structural wasn't damaged.  The exposed turbine "buckets" spin at thousands of RPMs and any piece of rubber "shrapnel" striking the hot, spinning turbine just might have caused damage to this important part of the Fort. They must've found everything OK, because they began concentrating on helping the guys working on the other side doing things to get the spindle ready for the big tire/wheel assembly. They looked liked a CSI team, looking for evidence around a crime scene (minus the lady CSI person in skin-tight blouse!).

It was near the magic time of 4:30 and the guys were wheeling the tire/wheel assembly over to the waiting main gear, using a cart that looked purpose-built. By the way, when you go to the Warbird Tire Store, you ask for a "56-inch SC" tire. It and the wheel weigh a combined 420 pounds.

While all of this activity was going on underneath the Number 2 Engine, I found Doug Peoples (one of the LSFM's B-17 pilots) who was going to be my pilot for the afternoon, Tom Owens and Curtis Norman (both B-17 Crew Chiefs) having a pow-wow near the nose of Thunder Bird. I got the official, "ain't gonna happen today" message from Doug. He said that while they'd probably get everything back together by 4:30 PM, it would be an hour or so before they'd be able to move the big Boeing. By that time, he said, they wouldn't have pilots on the premises, because of commitments of the pilots to things such as families, jobs, etc. (What a lame excuse!) It was a great day, anyway.

Long story, short: as the Astros have been saying for years, "Wait 'til next year!"

FMI: www.lsfm.org