Aerobatic demonstrations brought thousands to the Air Show of Warsaw over the weekend, but there also were airplanes on display with history lessons for those who took the time to learn more.
The three largest planes included the B-17G, the B25 Mitchell and the Douglas C47.
David Lowry, flight engineer and mechanic with the Yankee Air Museum, said the B-17G on display, known as the “Yankee Lady,” was built in July 1945 by Lockheed Vega in Burbank, Calif. It was built just a couple of weeks before the end of World War II.
The B-17 at the air show over the weekend was the 13th and last built before the end of the war, Lowry said. It sat unoperated for years. When the Navy took the plane over, it had its armaments taken off and was converted to a PB1G, which was used for rescues for 12 years. Then for a couple of years, it was used for high-altitude research.
“It was surplused out as scrap for a little over $6,000,” Lowry said.
Then it was bought up and used as a spare for spraying mosquitoes in the Midwest by the U.S. Forestry Service. After that, it became a fire bomber and dropped chemicals to help put out forest fires.
The Federal Aviation Administration took the B-17s out of service and put them on the market in 1986.
“We purchased it then in 1986. We spent 9-1/2 years to restore it,” Lowry said.
The empty weight of the plane is almost 34,000 pounds and it has a gross weight of 54,000 pounds, he said. The wingspan is about 104 feet and the length an estimated 75 feet. It has 12 .50 caliber machine gun replicas on it.
Lowry said the Yankee Air Museum, in Belleville, Mich., doesn’t fly the plane out to the West Coast because they mostly do weekend shows and don’t travel that far.
For more information, visit www.yankeeairmuseum.org.
Tri-State Warbird Museum President Paul Redlich said the B25 Mitchell at the Air Show was built in August 1945. It was the 10th to last produced and is the youngest B25 flying in the world.
It never saw any combat, but was used as a trainer and then employed in the 1950s for a variety of jobs.
During WWII, B25s were used as medium-altitude bombers and flew in every theater of the war. It was used in the Pacific as an anti-shipper and was a very versatile, rugged plane.
The Warbird Museum, in Batavia, Ohio, was only the third owner of the plane on display at the air show. The second owner, who was from Champaign, Ill., restored it and put the armaments on it. The museum took possession of it in 2005.
He said the B25s were a significant participant in helping win World War II.
It had a crew of five, including a pilot, co-pilot, radio operator (who also served as a bombardier and gunner) and two tailer gunners in the back of the plane.
It has a 65-foot wingspan and weighs approximately 23,000 pounds. As for guns, Redlich said the planes came in all different kinds of configurations, some with eight in the nose of the plane.
The C47, according to crew member and sometimes flight engineer Tony Pequeno, was the military version of the civilian DC3. The C47s were used primarily for transportation and troop drops during WWII. It was used extensively throughout the war, and post-war played a part in the Berlin Airlift.
“They have a lot of years on them and they run like you wouldn’t believe,” Pequeno said. “And they are well maintained as well.”
The C47 on display at Warsaw’s air show was built around April 1945. It didn’t see service in WWII, but was used for training pilots and navigators.
“At one point she saw service with the University of Michigan for research, but I’m not sure what kind,” Pequeno said.
The Yankee Air Museum flies the C47 to air shows with a crew of eight to 10, he said. Back in the day, the crew would include a pilot, co-pilot, navigator, radio operator and flight engineer.
Around 10,000 of the aircraft were built between 1935 and 1945. Today, maybe a few hundred or so are used for educational platforms by organizations like the Yankee Air Museum. In some places in the U.S., it’s used in an airline capacity.
“Our aircraft still has its original instrumentation except the FAA requires us to have GPS,” Pequeno said.
It is recertified by the FAA for flight periodically.
The C47 “chugs a 100 gallons of fuel an hour,” he said. Its wingspan is 95 feet and length is 64 feet. It’s 17 feet high.
“I’d rather fly in this than a commercial airline,” Pequeno said. “This plane is absolutely fantastic.”
(Story By The Times Union)
