"Aluminum Overcast"
For an early Veteran's Day event, there was a B-17G at a small local airstrip yesterday and today. For a few hundred you could actually go up in it, but that wasn't feasible. LOL
Did get to walk through and check it out pretty well though. This is a working B-17 that runs the circuit for air shows etc. Also present was a P-51D Mustang, but we were just walking up as it was idling and then taxi-ing off. Sounded incredible when it took off!
This particular B-17 didn't see duty, it was completed right at the end of the war. At least it's been taken care of so we could see it. Every bit as cool as I'd imagined.
Some Black Hawks running some kind of maneuvers at the other end of the strip, running pretty constantly, but I don't think that had anything to do wtih what we were there for. Still pretty cool to see in the background, they were landing every few minutes.

Awesome shots, thanks for sharing.

But would this not be a better topic for Event Photography ?

Hmmm, good point! Maybe a mod will be kind enough to move it.
Didn't even occur to me, I think for my skills, "even snapshots" would be more appropriate. Closer to screenshot quality than photography. LOL

Great pics there RK! That ole bird looks to be in fine shape. Too bad you didn't get to go for a ride. I can tell you as one who did, it's an experience you'll never forget. If can you finagle it one of these days do it! The sound of those engines in flight is worth the price of admission. Man that ball turret is tiny isn't it? I cannot imagine being couped up in there, but I've talked with two B-17 ball turret gunners and they said it was actually quite comfortable.

Is that you in the cockpit photo, left seat? That's another thing I got to do and it was wonderful.

Anyway, sure, I can move this to the Event Photography Forum.

Thanks for posting!

I'm envious, RK, that looked like a great opportunity to get up close. That is indeed a very good looking B-17.

Thanks for moving it for me.
I think that was the pilot in the picture there. It was hard to get a shot out of the cockpit at all, people seemed to stop up the works there.
I'd love for us to have been able to go up, but it was just too expensive. We may try to catch up with it again on a road trip though, they post their schedule.
http://www.b17.org/

That turret and tail gunner positions did NOT look very desirable! I knew the whole thing would be tight, tv/movies are pretty deceptive, but wow that catwalk through the bomb bay was really slim.

She certainly does look in good shape! Very nicely captured RK.

Very nice. I've been lucky enough to see a B-17 and B-24 in person, and it's such a great experience.

We also saw it fly right over my house on one of their ($$$$$) flights the other day. Fairly low too, it looked and sounded brilliant!

Beautiful pics RK.

I saw at Fuddy Duddy at Chino this year. I didn't get inside her but I was there when they left to go home.







Wheels

Great photos! Gotta love the B-17.