So my Dad called me earlier this week to tell me his Legion post was putting on an event at our airport (New Richmond WI) with the "Confederate Air Force" where they would have a B-25 and "a couple other aircraft" come out. Plus, they were GIVING RIDES IN THEM! Dang, count me in! I ended up bringing the family, but the rides cost $400 for the B-25 or $150 for the trainer. The budget didn't really support this, so I unfortunately stayed on the ground. I did get a bunch of pix, though.
For a much smaller fee (which helps towards the upkeep of the plane) they let you go in and look around. (There was a sign with info about the plane, and part of it stated the operating costs are $2400/hr so I had NO problem paying $20 to get to go into a piece of history. I brought 2 of my girls in, but the youngest was too young and for some reason my wife wasn't interested...
You start by climbing up thru this hatch behind the bomb bay
It looks a couple stories high from the ground
Looking aft towards the tail gunner's position (They wouldn't let us go back there because the tail stand wasn't under the plane. Wouldn't want my lard-butt making the plane fall over onto it's tail, now...
There's 2 waist gunner positions here. A seat that looks more like a folding chair and 2 more big machine guns. Man those guys roughed it up there, people were made of sterner stuff back then.
Next you climb back out and walk under the bomb bay
Miles of hydraulic lines, electrical wires, etc. They had 4 bombs in the racks, but I didn't know if they were "real" (decommissioned, I'm sure) or just things made to look like bombs. Cool either way. Plus it was cool knowing everything in there was mechanical, nothing electronic. Designed by guys with slide rules instead of computers, and assembled by real people, not robots.
Next we climbed up another hatch, kind of under the flight deck. You crawl thru a passage that looks suspiciously like a heat duct to the forward area (obligitory pic of my kids)
the bombardier's area in the nose (there's also 2 giant machine guns in there)
the bomb sight (I thought they took those out when they deactivated old military aircraft.)
I can't imagine riding up there all day, while getting shot at, in freezing temps. (not to mention how LOUD it must have been) Makes bitching about my airline seat seem silly in comparison)
We were supposed to go up to the flight deck too, but my girls have the attention span of gnats (and I'm sure aren't all that interested in WWII, ha ha), the guys said they were running out of time for tours before they were gonna take off, and I was kind of worried my girls might break something so we got back out and looked around the field some more. There were some other interesting planes there
The other plane they were giving rides in. It's late and I can't remember what they called this one...
They had a bunch of home built experimental planes there. I don't know why this one was sitting on it's nose
Cool old crop duster. It had vinyl "eyes" like in the movie "Planes"
GIANT radial engine on this one.
A good time was had by all. I got to hang out with my Dad and his Legion buddies, plus get to show my girls some neat history. WHo knows how much longer anybody'll be able to do stuff like go inside a B-25?