B-17

I flew on Aluminum Overcast today. This was an amazing experience.

The roaming tour is put on by the Experimental Aircraft Association: they run the flights and coordinate everything. The flights for the next few days are being run out of the Museum of Flight, which is convenient since I know where it is.

Anyway I showed up at around 9am and watched while they inspected and prepped the aircraft. It took about an hour before the plane was ready to go—and since I was on the first flight out, we got to sit through the engine runup and other goodness.

The plane is big on the outside but as you might expect from a WWII-era aircraft, it's pretty cramped in the cabin. We did get to wander around for most of the flight, and that meant a lot of climbing back and forth across the bomb bay catwalk. Much of the plane is traversed by small pathways (like the one from the cockpit to the nose), and the areas with any space are filled with all sorts of WWII-vintage gear. We were able to hang out in all of the positions during the flight except the ball turret, the tail gunner's turret, and the pilot/co-pilot's seats—although we were able to stand behind them in the cockpit. I spent some time shooting photos out the waist gunner positions, but mostly tried to stay further forward—I got a bunch of great shots there out the side windows and out the front and back of the top turret.

Without a doubt, the best view was from the bomber's position at the very front of the aircraft. From there you get 180° views of the world in front of you, spectacular shots below, and a full view of both pairs of engines.

We did a total of about 20 minutes aloft and covered almost exactly 40 miles from start to stop. Most of the flight we did a hair less than 150 knots.

After landing they popped the doors open and we were able to take more shots ... so I did. I got loads of great photos of the exterior, the interior, the engines, the massive turbochargers, and the other traffic at the field. Pretty much the only item I couldn't shoot was the inside of the tail gunner's turret, but I did get some detail from the outside. I got a bunch of video, too. I'll post it once I get it compressed to a reasonable size.

It's incredible to experience such an amazing piece of history like this.