Over Silicon Valley in a B-17 Flying Fortress

View from the nose of a B-17 flying over Silicon Valley. The Norden bombsight is visible in the center; the chin turret controller sits above it, to the right. A .50 gun pokes out to the left.

Want to travel in time?  To visit the future, you'll have to pay the Russians $20 million to fly you up to the International Space Station.  But for just a few hundred bucks, anyone can turn back the clock 60 years by going for a flight aboard a World War II-era bomber.

Nine O Nine in profile. Exterior view of the plexiglass nose cone and .50 gun shown above and below; note the bombardier-operated chin turret below the nose.

"Nine O Nine" is a B-17G Flying Fortress that was restored by the Collings Foundation. Designed by Boeing, the B-17 was one of the primary bombers flown by the United States over Europe during the Second World War. Capable of carrying a 6000 lb. bomb load on a 2000-mile round-trip while cruising at 185 mph, each B-17 also carried a crew of 10, including a pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier/nose gunner, flight engineer/top turret gunner, radio operator, 2 waist gunners, a ball turret gunner, and a tail gunner.

Navigator's seat (left) and Bombardier's seat (center)

Famously rugged and reliable, over 12,000 B-17s were built, but when the war ended most, were unceremoniously scrapped. Today only fourteen B-17s still fly. Nine-O-Nine is one of them.

Telstar Logistics flew aboard Nine O Nine when it visited Moffett Field, California in 2002. We sat on the floor behind the pilot during takeoff, grinning madly the entire time.  After the plane leveled off over Silicon Valley, we were encouraged to wander around the cabin to take in the views; from the bombardier's seat in the plexiglass nose, through the bomb bay and the radio operator's room (where the skylight was retracted for that 180 mph wind-in-your-hair thrill), all the way back to the .50 cal waist guns.

Port engines, in flight, as seen from the navigator's seat

If you've got a few extra shekels to spend, reserve a space on a flight this spring when the Collings Foundation visits an airport near you. The flights last 30 minutes, and they cost about as much as a roundtrip airline ticket from New York to LA. But as time-travel experiences go, it's a fantastic bargain.

In Flight Aboard a B-17 Flying Fortress (Flickr photoset by Telstar Logistics): LINK

B-17 Flying Fortress (Wikipedia entry): LINK

(Photos above by Telstar Logistics)

Comments

[Mike Cray]

I hate you people. I mean I loathe you with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. Your sir, are one of the most vile creations on the face of the Earth.

You rode in a B-17.

You rode in a B-17G and you have the gall to post NO MORE THAN FOUR PICTURES?

Surely Telstar Logistics (a company perhaps not on the cusp of being listed on the NYSE, but certainly vested of enough resources to create pens) can do better than a paltry four photographs.

The nerve of corporate America. Pfah.

Oh, wait. There's a photoset on Flickr. Nevermind.

[TelstarLogistics]

At Telstar Logistics we say: "The customer is always right!"

[Zack]

I can't even tell you how incredibly envious I am.
My grandfather was the waist gunner in a B-17F and G stationed out of Kimbolton in the UK. The airstrip is now partially used as a go-kart track and the buildings have been leveled, but the stories he has told me will always paint a vivid picture of what once stood there and what it was like flying strapped to the floor behind a 50 caliber browning that would melt if you fired it for more than 30 seconds.