Mark's B17 ride - john meister © 2016

Mark's B17 ride
Hello all, Just in case you feel nostalgic:

My wife bought me a ticket for a ride on a WWII B17 on July 3, 2016 (a father's day gift - thanks Gail).

It is kept in good flying condition by Wings Of Freedom Tour.
They change the paint scheme (annually I think) to honor various B17 crews of the past,
so the name of this plane is not its original name. I think this plane never flew in combat.

We strapped into seats on the floor with no way to see out during take off and landing,
then were allowed to wander anywhere about the plane, except the tail gunner position and the ball turret.
The top gunner turret had been removed and an open hole left in the fuselage which we were able to stick
our heads out and get a blast of 150 mph wind and take some pictures. You can see a bit of the hole in
one of the pictures. It was a bit nosier than a passenger jet and vibrated a little more, but not uncomfortable.
The ride was a little bouncy so of course the video is too. Some of the best movie pictures were taken from the
bombers chair in the nose because I could look straight down on Seattle. The ride lasted about 1/2 hour,
10 passengers (9 men, one lady in her 20's). Everyone loved it. It was awesome! One of the passengers on my
flight was a fairly old guy, late 70's maybe. His son was on the ride too. We helped him stabilize and get
around because of the bouncing and lack of places to grab onto. Space was confined.

My camera ran out of battery power so I had to switch to movies on my cell phone.
The camera sound on the numbered.mp movies was more realistic than the cell phone sound movies (.3pg).
It played really loud on my PC, so maybe you should turn the volume down to start with.
There are also a few pictures of the 787 on display at the Museum of Flight.

You are welcome to share with anyone.

My dad used to fly these machines, but not in combat. He would fly wounded GI's and on other assignments
he flew the beat up planes from the east coast to a maintenance facility in San Antonio. I think some of the
ones he flew were used in the Berlin Airlift effort. Years ago while he was visiting me here in Seattle,
I tried to get him to take a ride, but he declined; I am not sure why. It isn't cheap, about a one way jet
ticket to St. Louis.

The ride on a P51 Mustang was expensive (about $2,500 for 1/2 hour.) If I won the lottery, that would be
tops on my list of money well spent. They said 80% of the ticket is tax deductible because it is a non-profit.

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