The Fortress Returns to Seattle

On June 28, 1935, an American icon took to the air in Seattle, Washington. That day the Boeing model 299—prototype of the B-17—made its maiden flight. A reporter who witnessed the flight referred to the plane as a “veritable flying fortress.” And the name stuck. An aircraft legend was born.

The “Flying Fortress” became the backbone of the strategic bombing effort in World War II. The plane was best known for daring daylight bombing raids over Germany and its ability to take a beating and still keep flying. Many aircrews trusted their lives to the fortresses, which often returned safely to base even while missing large chunks of wing or fuselage.

After the war, the surviving B-17s returned home. Some were sold as surplus, spending their days as civilian transports or hauling cargo. A few became target drones and were used in anti-aircraft missile tests. But most became victims of the scrap-yard guillotine. Today, of the 12,671 B-17s built between 1935 and 1945, only 15 in the entire United States are considered air worthy. And for the past few years Seattle’s Museum of Flight each year has hosted two of these surviving legends—the Aluminum Overcast and the Nine-O-Nine. The planes will return to Seattle this spring, offering people a chance to not only view the planes, but also take a ride in them.

Restoration Project
The Aluminum Overcast was delivered to the Army in May of 1945—too late to see action in the war. It was sold as surplus and spent three decades serving as a cargo hauler, an aerial mapping platform, and in pest control. In 1978 a group of investors who called themselves B17s Around the World purchased the aircraft, intending to restore it. In 1983, the group donated the B-17 to the Experimental Aircraft Association of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, which was better equipped to do the restoration. Today, after more than ten years of restoration, Aluminum Overcast displays the colors that pay homage to the 398th Bomb Group.

Like the Aluminum Overcast, the Nine-O-Nine came off the assembly line too late to see combat. After a short stint in the Military Air Transport Service, the plane served as a civilian fire fighter, dropping water on forest fires, before it was sold to the Collings Foundation of Stow, Massachusetts, in 1986. There she was restored to her original wartime configuration and named in honor of a 91st Bomb Group, 323rd Squadron plane of the same name.

Wherever these aircrafts tour, they always draw large crowds, anxious to get close to these historical symbols. For a small fee the viewer is allowed a close inspection and tour of the plane interior.

But the real thrill awaits the few who pay about $400 for the flight experience. For takeoff and landing, passengers remain buckled to their seats at the waist gunner positions. Originally open, the waist guns’ portals are now covered with Plexiglas that reduces the wind and engine noise. However, once aloft you are free to wander through the plane for the duration of the flight.

Reliving History
It’s easy to imagine what it might have been like for the young airmen as you look along the black barrel of the waist gunner’s .50-caliber machinegun. Moving toward the front of the aircraft, past the metallic blister of the ball turret projecting from the floor, you step through the bulkhead that leads to the bomb bay. A narrow metal beam centered over the bomb-bay doors takes you to a second bulkhead that opens to the pilot and bombardier’s positions. From the bombardier’s position in the nose of the plane you have a panoramic view of the landscape.

During the flight, you can look out from any gunner’s position and imagine being surrounded by hundreds of other B-17s en route to the enemy target. But it’s hard to imagine the bitter, bone-numbing, sub-freezing cold the airmen endured at 25,000 feet. Or the fear of going into combat, knowing that each gun had only one minute’s ammunition. Or the misery of watching one of the group’s planes roll out of the formation, streaming smoke as it falls toward the ground. Or the frustration of watching a battle-damaged plane that can’t keep up with the formation fall behind, knowing its doomed crew will fall prey to the fighters that are waiting for the unfortunate stragglers.
But this flight is without the stress and tension of a wartime mission and ends far too soon for its few passengers. As they exit the aircraft and join the crowd of onlookers, you hear them sum up their experience with words like “awesome” and “fantastic.” And then the plane re-starts its engines and rolls down the taxiway with another group of passengers intent on reliving a moment in history. In a few minutes the aircraft rushes down the runway and rises from the ground. Now only a memory of the great air armadas of World War II, the Fortress soon disappears in the distant sky.

The Aluminum Overcast is scheduled to visit the Museum of Flight from Wednesday, May 21 to Sunday, May 25. It is on a spring tour that includes stops in California, Oregon, Utah and Colorado. For tour information, visit www.b17.org/tour. The Nine-O-Nine is scheduled to arrive in Seattle on Saturday, June 21, and leave on Sunday, June 22. It also has other scheduled stops that can be found at www.collingsfoundation.org.

If you are interested in taking a flight, you can find information about booking reservations at the tour Web sites. You can also find information about the Seattle visits by contacting the Seattle Museum of Flight. Phone (206) 764-5720 or visit www.museumofflight.org. The museum is located at the southwest side of Boeing Field just off Interstate 5 at 9404 E Marginal Way South.

Tony R. Diaz is a freelance writer who lives in Tacoma, Washington.