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Bob and the B-17
Sep. 27th, 2003 05:14 pmWent to Lakefront airport to see my dad ride in a restored B-17. His dad was a tailgunner in WWII in the same type plane. It was pretty cool to climb around inside and see what little space these guys had. There were thousands of B-17's made, but only a dozen or so are still flying, with less than a hundred saved from the scrapheap. So this one plane (Aluminum Overcast, cool name) is restored with original equipment. 50 mm guns, working tail and belly turrets, four loud-ass engines. It's cool. Dad loved it.
The whole thing was sponsored by Pat Taylor of Taylor Energy. This is the guy who founded the Taylor Plan, which currently pays for the college education of thousands of 3.5 gpa high school students every year. Mr.Taylor had free popcorn and hot dogs and soft drinks, all inside his personal hangar at Lakefront. His collection includes a Navy biplane trainer like my other grandfather flew, a 1950's Beechcraft 18, two helicopters, a Nazi spotter plane (in amazingly good condition), and a couple of other planes.
The whole experience was wonderful, barring my continuing illness [cough] [hack].
The whole thing was sponsored by Pat Taylor of Taylor Energy. This is the guy who founded the Taylor Plan, which currently pays for the college education of thousands of 3.5 gpa high school students every year. Mr.Taylor had free popcorn and hot dogs and soft drinks, all inside his personal hangar at Lakefront. His collection includes a Navy biplane trainer like my other grandfather flew, a 1950's Beechcraft 18, two helicopters, a Nazi spotter plane (in amazingly good condition), and a couple of other planes.
The whole experience was wonderful, barring my continuing illness [cough] [hack].
