Prose & Photography: Nicholas Pascarella

[editor's note:] I wrote this piece for Wings Magazine in 2016; it was the first aviation related piece I'd ever written, and arguably the most resonant aviation memory in my adult life. The impact that this B-17 flight had on my life is still seeing the ripples emanate outward. With the blessing of Wings Magazine, we are again hosting the piece through Full Disc with a singular purpose: to convey the meaning and importance behind warbird rides. 

The tragedy involving the Collings Foundation B-17 unfortunately put the legitimacy of these warbird rides in question. In my opinion, and I believe I speak for a lot of us in the warbird community, this type of education is not only legitimate, but necessary. 

This is a living, breathing, history lesson in the air. These irreplaceable pieces of our modern human history fit into millions of Americans' lives; some of them know it, and some of them don't. It seems like everyone I talk to in my day-to-day, non-aviation workplace had a grandfather that flew in the war. Or had an uncle that was shot down and spent time as a POW. Or had a mother who flew with the W.A.S.P. units. This is our only chance to get a tiny slice of what they experienced more than 70 years ago.

These aircraft are well maintained and cared for by the loving hands of the dwindling numbers of men and women who have the necessary skills to perform this specific type of work. Each airframe and powerplant must pass stringent testing each year to achieve airworthy status. The pilots enlisted to fly these warbirds are the best of the best, and they care dearly about their mission. 

The Army Air Forces at one point enlisted 2.4 million men and women. Chances are, a warbird has touched the life of someone you know and love. 

One of my grandfathers jumped out of C-47s as a paratrooper during WWII. I was too young to understand the gravity of that role or to ask the questions that present day me is dying to ask. What did it sound like? How did it feel? Some of those questions are answered in a warbird flight; airworthy D-Day veteran C-47's give rides across the country each year, and you can even get a flight lesson in a dual-control WWII fighter aircraft, like the P-40 or the venerable P-51 Mustang. 

This history is important, and we owe it to those who gave their lives to remember them and their sacrifices. That means flying these aircraft to different locations, educating and displaying their living history. The lion's share of money keeping these aircraft aloft are the warbird rides. 

There's a plaque aboard Yankee Lady, the B-17 I took my ride in. It has some information like serial number and number of B-17s manufactured, but there were two numbers that hit me hard, and further emphasize our charge to keep this history alive.

Missions Flown: 1,440,000

Crewmen Lost in Action: 79,265 

Think about those numbers for a second. Especially the second one; the number of crewmen lost in action.
79,265.

Please help keep them flying. [-np]

Full Disc Aviation sends our deepest condolences to the Collings family and the families of those lost in the recent B-17 tragedy. May we never forget.

***photos updated from the original piece. 

Yankee Lady: Flying in the Fortress 

It's late on a sweltering June afternoon on the Spaatz Field hot ramp at the Mid Atlantic Air Museum. My group of twelve had just been briefed and we began boarding a big, aluminium bird that had just played host to a small, quiet ceremony held for a WWII veteran deplaning from the previous flight. The flight and ground crew had presented him with a medal and each member offered a handshake and warm thanks for his service, something they do for all veterans who go up on rides with them. After squeezing through the crawlway between the cockpit and the nose, I carefully backed my lanky, folded frame onto the stiff navigator’s seat, unstrapped my camera, and slowly sat up straight trying not to bump any knobs or switches above my head. The credentials hanging from my neck glinted in a shaft of fiery sunlight as I held them up, in sharpie it read: Pass #12, Flight #8. The last seat...on the last flight...of my last day at World War II Weekend in Reading, PA. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been focused almost entirely on a music career for many years. I was always interested in aviation but with such little time outside of music, the only tasty bits of the aviation world I had ingested were in the form of biographies, war diaries and the gun camera footage I was so dazzled with when I was young. However, the end of my last serious music project left the door open for other activities and a late afternoon in June found me in the navigator's seat of the B-17 "Yankee Lady" of the Yankee Air Museum, listening to the rising whine of the inertia starter and checking off a rather large box on my bucket list. Engine No.1 sputtered, died, coughed and finally roared to life. I settled in behind the bombardier’s position, scanned the array of switches, knobs and levers, and wondered what my own grandfathers (who both fought on the ground during the conflict) would be thinking about my current position. 

Engine No.2 chugged slowly like a steam engine before catching, then settling down to its own thrumming, adding to the harmony of creaks, whines and knocks befitting a military plane of 1940s vintage. While she never saw combat, she was a workhorse in the US Coast Guard for 12 years as an air/sea rescue craft, carrying a 3,300lb wooden lifeboat and radar dome in place of bombs. She was later used for aerial survey work before being one of five B-17s flown to the islands of Hawaii in 1969 to star in the filming of Tora! Tora! Tora! 

Through the port windows the big 1200hp No.3 Wright Cyclone R-1820 huffed and puffed into animation, filling its nearly 30 litre displacement with explosions. I started thinking of the tens of thousands before me who listened to the same engines crank, who went up in the same airframe to fight and never came home. Images from literature and documentaries came rushing back into my mind: a lone bomber staggering behind the formation, streaming smoke from flak and swarmed by fighters, or the horrifying image of a completely stricken B-17 cartwheeling flame through a sky filled with black puffs of screaming metal as fellow airmen stare out of their own bombers helplessly transfixed, hoping desperately to see their buddies' silks snap open. I didn't even notice No.4 firing up.

We taxied slowly out, her brakes singing a soprano melody, all four baritone Cyclones humming along. Tears welled up in my eyes. The mellifluous harmony inside the guts of a real fire-breathing B-17 with the weight of the plane's history on my heart was overwhelming. I allowed the feeling to consume me for a minute as we taxied, appreciating the lives lost and remembering both of my grandfathers. 

We turned on to the active runway and almost immediately the "Unruly” brothers, our excellent pilots for the flight, opened up the aircraft’s throttles. The thrumming of the Cyclones rode a slow crescendo to their oppressive roar and we started moving down the runway. Take off was smooth and silky as we 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' and the runway fell away beneath us. Once we reached 1000 feet we had the chance to move around the aircraft and I traded my uncomfortable seat with the woman up front for her slightly less uncomfortable seat, snuggled in behind the Norden bombsight. This was by far the best seat in the house, nested in the clear nose cone watching the world pass below like it was on a scroll. Up in this forward most point of the aircraft, the bombardier had unobstructed views of the bomber stream, landscape, flak patterns or any fighters coming up for battle, provided he was not eye-to-the-bombsight on a bombing run. I watched the rolling hills of Pennsylvania and I tried to imagine bouncing around in a storm of flak with my eye glued to the bombsight, looking for a tiny target five miles straight down. 

Moved by the experience at the bombardier’s position, I started moving rearward. I slithered on my hands and knees through the crawlspace between the two pilots (being over six feet tall in a B-17 is an issue) and climbed up into the top gun turret. After looking at the arrangement of .50 calibre Browning machine guns right in front of my face, I cannot imagine how loud it was to burn through hundreds of rounds throughout the course of an air battle. The view, however, was excellent, with good visibility of most parts of the aircraft along with a 360 degree panorama of everything above the horizon. How incredible this view must have been tucked into a bomber stream a thousand strong. I climbed down from the turret and watched Captain Rule and his brother work the controls through an easy turn, enjoying their unconscious monitoring and tweaking. They seemed to be enjoying themselves as if on a Sunday drive in a vintage hot rod. I saw them later in the evening at a sushi restaurant where I introduced them to my father before thanking them for volunteering their weekend; the two pilots couldn't have been nicer. 

After the panoramic views of the top turret, I began working my way further back through the fuselage. The catwalk through the bomb bay required a tight-rope balancing act, however it was made a little less nerve-wrecking by the absence of a full load of bombs on either side of me. I got cosy behind the waist guns, put my fingers on the triggers and tried to imagine spotting the typical fighters of the Luftwaffe; a Messerschmitt Bf-109, the twin engine Bf-110 or the formidable Focke-Wulf Fw-190. American B-17s served in the Pacific as well and it would be no less terrifying to have had Japanese “Zero” fighters pouring out of the sun with their guns winking. I scanned the sky but it was empty, only the sleepy Pennsylvania countryside rolling below.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I could not make it all the way back to the rear gunner position when the bomber’s landing gear was in the raised position. I was told afterwards by the flight crew that I may not have been able to squeeze myself into the rear gunner position even with the landing gear lowered due to my build. I was able to move a little more freely within the waist gunner positions, but eventually it became time to sit down and buckle up as we were already lining up on final approach back to base. 

We landed as smoothly as we took off, and touchdown was barely perceptible. I spent the time watching the wires for the rear control surfaces move with the pilot's input, wires they had mentioned at the earlier briefing to try not to hang on to or tug at as they would steer the plane off course. Nothing the "Unruly" brothers couldn't have corrected though, I'm sure. 

We taxied quickly back to where we started and the engines whirred to a stop. At this point my smile couldn't be contained, as someone who occasionally had issues with motion sickness, I have never felt more comfortable in an aircraft. Looking at the faces around me, everyone on board wore that same smile. The flight was incredibly enriching, moving and surreal. Every moment of the event from arriving at the aircraft to standing under her wings afterwards filled me completely with reverence and respect. It's an experience that will stick with me forever but it left me hungry for much more. We deplaned, thanked the crew and I headed to the fence line to greet my father. Once clear of “Yankee Lady”, I looked back at the aircraft; her gleaming aluminium skin bathed in now early evening light, her weapons bristling, her engines still ticking and popping from the flight. With heartfelt appreciation, I solemnly thanked those who rode these ships into battle armed to the teeth. Their sacrifices are not lost on us.

POST SCRIPT: 

Yankee Air Museum provide aircraft experience flights in various historic aircraft. Choose from air adventures in a C-47, Waco, B-25 or the B-17 “Yankee Lady” herself.

www.yankeeairmuseum.org 

Special thanks to Wings
wingsmag.co.uk