PTS Flowbench Forum

Dear friends!
The nature begins to charge us!
Every day shows its power!
Here in Brazil many problems also!
But in America is surely more difficult ...
************************************************************************

Caros amigos!
A natureza começa a cobrar de nos!
A cada dia mostra sua força!
Aqui no Brazil muitos problemas também!
Mas na America com certeza é mais difícil...

Kind of a fun day at work today, the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum put on an air show, it wrapped up a short time ago.
Here are a few of the pics I took during my shift.

This hardly compares to what Ed posted but is cute. From Gunnison, Utah a real Mater from Cars.

John

Along the same lines as my last post, another aircraft from the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum's collection, this time however the aircraft was flying over my home.

Ed,
Did you see where a B-17 crashed about a week or so ago? In that first group of pictures you have a picture that looks like the won that burnt. It wasn't really a crash per say.

John

No, I had to google it, the crash occurred a few days before the airshow.
My earlier picture was a B-25, it too is part of CWH collection.
Here's a picture of one of the two B-17's that appeared at the recent airshow, an absolutely gorgeous airplane.

My Uncle (whom took his own life) was a tail gunner on a B-17. A few years ago at a WWII show near me I took the time and spent the money to take a walk through a B-17 and having had the pleasure of many hours spent flying in a C-130 around the world . . . all I can say is WOW! I often gave it thought while flying in Europe what it must have been like?

My Father whom is 90 now, was in the Big Red One and has 8 WWII Campaign Stars and said he was glad he was on the ground and was not his brother stuck in the back of that plane!

My buddies father was a bombardier on a B-17 in WWII. He recently died. He was a great guy but always a little quirky. I have always wondered how it affected him knowing that every time he dumped a load he was probably killing a bunch of people. Even if it was the "enemy" it would have to work on you.

That B17 that burned was here in Utah about a month or so ago and was giving 1 hour rides for $450. I was so tempted but my wife told me it would be the last time I flew.

Here are a couple of links I found on the sad story of the B17 burning, third link had a lot of good pictures.
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/2011 ... 706139928/

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/ ... 0852.shtml

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... otogallery

John

For me those aircraft are an interesting curiosity merely a piece of history but from those who lived though the war, they can evoke strong emotions. The sound coming from those 4 Rolls Royce Merlin engines of that Lancaster flying over the house the other day was very unique and quite loud, my father, who spent the war in occupied Holland, turned to me and said, "can you imagine what 200 or 300 of those flying over the house would sound like? That's what we had almost every night, it's something I'll never forget"

BTW, it wasn't always just the enemy that got killed when the bombs were dropped, when an aircraft would get in trouble en route to their target, they'd lighten the aircraft by dropping their payload, they tried their best to drop it away from populated areas but that wasn't always possible. Quite a number of people in my dad's home town got killed by allied bombs in this way, another one of my dad's remembrances as the Lancaster was doing circuits over the house.

It's hard for me to imagine what it was like for the people who lived through that whether civilian or soldier and the toll it must have taken on them. One thing that's always struck me about them is the almost complete lack of any lingering animosity. They truly were/are the greatest generation.

Amen Ed, and now I have to listen to people whine because certain channels on their TV are not working or their internet is not fast enough so they cannot watch youtube on and on and on. My Dad was in the Pacific around the Philippines etc on an LST Ship. He told us a few stories but never really liked dwelling on it and as you said I was surprised on how my Dad had no animosity towards anybody else.