hey all..

just a reminder to LA Tiki Centralites. don't be alarmed at the roar of B-17s and B-24s overhead. we're not under attack! the Collings Foundation WWII warplanes are back on tour!

if you're near Burbank Airport, i strongly recommend stopping by and taking an on-board tour of the B-17 and B-24! it's absolutely mind blowing. for $8 you can walk through the planes and for a tax deductable $400, you can take a life enhancing 30 minute flight...steep price, but I promise you won't regret it!

they are at Burbank until this evening, the 18th. then they take off into the sunset. truly a sight to behold...especially on the 60th anniversary of VE Day.

here's a pic from my pre-flight last year:

their site is http://www.collingsfoundation.org

Keep 'em flyin!!!!!!!!!

The bombers are @ Moffet this weekend. I guess they were doing some practice flights this evening and the B-24 flew over our house, we got a great look at it right out the window.
WOW, what a beautiful airplane!
Thanks for the tip Tiki1963, I'm gonna try to head down this weekend.
Aloha,
:tiki:

Yeah! I guess these babies were in Torrance the other weekend. I live down by the Korean Bell in Pedro and they kept buzzing over about every hour or so. Magnificient machines in flight. I would have loved to be able to be in one.

thanks for the post!

oh yeah! it really affects you when you see them over your house!

especially for younger kids...a dad who brought his kid and his friends to see the planes were blown away! it was as if WWII suddenly became real to them...which i'd say is a good thing.

on the ground they are amazing, but let me tell ya, in flight...yipes! you REALLY grow to respect and appreciate what those poor bastards who had to fly those things into combat went through. they are cramped and very ricketty(?) but at the same time you get the sense that these things helped save the world. not to mention they are absolutely beautiful designs...

i think they come back to this area at some point as they make their way back east. i'd have to check the tour dates on the site. but honestly, it is well worth the effort to at least do the walk on tour and you're also helping support the upkeep of the planes. basically, the $400 flight is so much because it costs about 3-4000 bucks in fuel alone!

here's some more pics!

I have Camarillo in my sights!

Wow, nice pics! I wish I had the $$$ to get a ride in the B-17. I was lucky as a teenager to have a friend who worked at Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino and a bunch of us got to ride in a B-25 and an O-47 ("The Owl")

The B-25 was fun, but very cramped and hot and we couldn't move around. I was in the bubble nose, which was pretty cool, though. The O-bird was more fun as it had windows along the belly that were used to mount cameras in during the war. There are heavy-duty rails along the belly area that I could stand on, and the pot-belly combined with the high canopy allowed me to stand up during flight. It was really thrilling buzzing the swamps of Chino and being able to watch the ground rush by right under my feet.

Good times.

whoa tiki bot! both of those planes sound neat!

the 17 was very hot on the ground and cold in the air...and this is Camarillo in April! can you imagine Germany at 20,000ft in December 1943?

on both planes, they let you walk around everywhere exept the ball turret and tail gunner's area simply because of the danger...there are still hairtrigger escape doors back there. the bomadier's station is the most luxurious and the waist positions are tre cool. there is also a slidable 'sunroof' on the top behind the top gunners position and you can actually stick your head and shoulders completely out. it freaked me out a bit as i kept thinking a duck or something would smash into my head!

i've never been to the Chino museum so i'll have to make the trek soon!

Those of you who are interested in war planes of this era should check out the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, docked in Alameda. They have a number of planes (with folded wings!) displayed on the hangar deck and flight deck.

Has anyone here taken a bay cruise on the Liberty Ship Jeremiah O'Brien?

Planes of Fame is a great museum, or it was the last time I visited many years ago. Last I read they are trying to raise money to expand and upgrade their facility. I have many great memories of weekends spent washing warbirds (to "pay" for our rides), plus getting to see the first ever all-original Japanese Zero fly since the war. But my favorite memory, other than flying, was when my pal thought he'd surprise us by climbing into the (empty & engine-less) fuselage of an F-106 jet and poking his head out the intake. It was funny til he got stuck in the intake and we, having cleaning utinsils and water hoses in hand, well, I think you know what happened next.

As for the B-17, an old friend of mine's dad kept a diary of his many tours as a navigator stationed in England and later, France. It was amazing to read something so personal. He chronicled life on the bases, the social issues facing servicemen (racism, violence, alcoholism, "battle fatigue" and such) and of course, the harrowing missions. The most frightening part was when he got his orders to go home, but still had to fly 3 more missions. I don't think I could handle that kind of pressure, not with fellow squadron members dying almost every week. It's impossible nowadays to comprehend the level of fear and bravery those guys functioned at on a daily basis. It was an amazing read, to say the least.

yeah, i really have a huge appreciation for all those that served...they truly are the 'greatest generation'! i had great uncles in the 8th Air Force and 5th Army in Africa, Italy and Germany and the stories were always amazing.

here's a pic of my uncle "Wiggly" in his P-38.

that Liberty Ship cruise sounds great! where would i find info on that? can you make a dinner evening out of it? on that front (no pun intended) the Queen Mary is always a great place have dinner.

[ Edited by: tiki1963 on 2005-05-20 18:32 ]

it all fits into the Tiki theme in that all these guys and gals that came back from the war, especially the Pacific theater is why we have Tiki culture in America. this cool genre that we are so into grew out of their absolute need for R&R escapism.

i know that if i had just spent 4+ years being shot at, i would be ready for a few mai tais and zombies!

hell, i just got off the LA 405 freeway and i'm ready for one now!

The Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park San Diego is a great collection of vintage aviation. I remember the old one before arsonists burnt it down.

And the Midway in San Diego Bay is slowly gorwing their collection of aircraft. If I lived in San Diego, I'd volunteer to help with the resoration going onboard.

I remember years ago (early 70's) that the USS Bunker Hill used to be docked at the old battleship berths at the very northern edge of NAS North Island. We could drive onto more restricted areas of the base because of some decal on Grand-dads car. I was very tempted as a 10 year old to get out of the car and ask for a tour. Dad frowned on that idea.

For awhile there were a few people trying to get her turned into a floating museum. Seems not enough people were interested. They towed her listing heavily out of San Diego Harbour, and off to the breakers. My dad always said thats where they turned the ships into razor blades.

I'm glad they got the Midway. But the Bunker Hill was almost an icon of late World War Two. Taking multiple Kamikazes and surviving.

It would have been just a little bit more fitting to have thrown dads wreath off of her bow.

I have to save up 400 bucks and take that flight.

USS Bunker Hill (CV-17, later CVA-17, CVS-17 and AVT-9), 1943-1973

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-b/cv17.htm

[ Edited by: TikiGardener on 2005-05-21 22:32 ]

On 2005-05-20 18:30, tiki1963 wrote:
that Liberty Ship cruise sounds great! where would i find info on that? can you make a dinner evening out of it?

Here's their cruise schedule:
http://www.ssjeremiahobrien.org/cruises.html

Gillespie Field in El Cajon just east of me hosts an air show / exibit (usually put on by the Confederate Airforce out of Arizona). I can hear that B-24 Liberator & B-17 Flying Fortress comin' and I run out to marvel at them flying right over my house. Like Haley's Comet, I realize this ain't somethin' that's gonna happen too many more times in my lifetime...gotta take it in when I get the chance. I took my son for the walk thru tour of the B-17 when he was a kid. I was amazed at how cramped the plane is (I only saw it on the old TV show "12 O'clock High", when it looked like you could swing a dead cat in there and not hit anything). My hat goes off to the poor sonofabitch in the ball turret (he had to have balls of steel).

I remember back in 1985, they had a special airshow for celebrating the 40th anniversary of the end of WWII. They had a huge number of vintage aircraft for it. All of the flight worthy one flew into NAS North Islands main landing strip. I just layed down in Sunset Park directly under the approach path and watched. Must have been about 20 planes from back in the day.

*On 2005-05-21 14:28, Shipwreckjoey wrote:*I was amazed at how cramped the plane is (I only saw it on the old TV show "12 O'clock High", when it looked like you could swing a dead cat in there and not hit anything). My hat goes off to the poor sonofabitch in the ball turret (he had to have balls of steel).

i wonder how any of those guys dealt with it. honestly, there isn't a place in the plane other than the pilot seats that were somewhat comfortable to be in. and these poor bastards had 5-7 hour missions in the cold with enemy fighters and flak constantly at their throats. now, i'm not saying that the guy in a foxhole had it any easier, but the bombers were no picnic.

in one of the pics where you see the pilots backs through a bulkhead, that area is barely enough room for one person to get through. you have to squeeze around the dorsal gunner's position if they were at their station and crawl up into the cockpit. if you look towards the bottom of the pic, you can see someone at the bombadiers position underneath the cockpit. to get to there, you have to crawl, and i mean CRAWL down onto a catwalk the size of a 2 X 4 to the nose position. while there, the bombadier is basically sitting in space. the position is literally away from the plave with nothing but a 1/4" thick plastic bubble between you and god knows what. how these guys could keep their cool with cold, flak and fighters is just amazing.

here's some more pics although the 24 is now painted in European theater colors...

Great B-24 pic. I must admit, as a WWII airplane freak, the Consolidated (later to merge with Vultee Aircraft to become Convair) B-24 Liberator was my favorite bomber, followed by the RAF's Avro Lancaster and the B-25 Mitchell (30 seconds over Tokyo) then the B-17 which ultimately lead to the greatest bomber of all time - the B-52. Bombs away.

The head Librarian at my high school library flew on B-17's. If you look at the pic from the B-24, you'll notice the pilot and co-pilot wearing nice relatively sound insulated headsets.

He had no such luxuries. It was awkward, because it was a library, but you had to speak very loudly to him. Apparently he could STILL hear the engines humming in his ears.

My eighth grade history teacher would recount how he and his buddies would count the number of holes shot in B-29s returning from missions over Japan. That and watching some of them ditch in the ocean just short of the airfield.

good point, TikiGardener...

it was LOUD in the 17! my head was ringing for a while after just 30 mins in that thing.

the 17 is probably my favorite plane. i also like the P-38, P-51, P-61 Black Widow and the Spitfire. the krauts had some pretty cool ones too.

i saw the Me262 jet at the Smithsonian a few years ago and that thing gives you the chills! it's amazing how close we came to goose-steppin' around here when you think that if Hitler had a few more years head start....

A sad end to a carrier I remember seeing at North Island many times.

Retired Carrier Sunk Off Atlantic Coast

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050521/ap_on_re_us/carrier_sunk

Went down and saw the bombers this morning. These things are amazing. They are beautiful to watch take-off and land, and the sound those engines make on the B-17... Oh baby.
Its unbeleivable what these guys did. Once you're inside the plane you realize that it really isn't much more than a flying soda can. You'd think that the massive engines would tear the plane apart.
It was great to listen to the vets who volunteer and hear their stories. It really helps to bring the planes to life and you realize that these men were friggin' rock stars.
Aloha,
:tiki:

amen! glad you made it over to them Tiki Royale!

sad new about the carrier. seems like Long Beach could of used something like the museum they mentioned near the Queen Mary. perfect for vintage planes...oh well...