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June 2018
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Disponible en línea en español.
Lackland AFB, a Brigadier General in the left seat, a full bird Colonel in the right.
I was like a kid on Christmas morning when they pushed those throttles forward
on Stewart’s LONG runway.
Back to Dover: usually we were in a rush to get to Maryland, or, back home.
But one day we turned off Exit 91 on DE1/US 113 and followed the brown
museum signs. We passed a T-33A jet trainer inside the entrance (admission is
FREE), and after we parked I practically ran out of the car towards the planes on
display on the tarmac. There are “over 30” airlifters, refuelers, jets, helicopters,
and gliders, a one-time Vice Presidential jet, and a B-17G and C-47.
We passed a maintenance shed on the way, and poked our noses inside.
Right by the door was a Rolls Royce Merlin V-1650 P-51 Mustang engine; I’d
never seen one outside an airplane. I touched it; I was, in a word, thrilled: to me,
the North American P-51D Mustang is the fighter plane of all time. I’ve actually
dreamt that I was up there flying a P-51D (a good thing the dream ended before I
had to figure out how to land it: where was the landing gear switch; the flaps; the
throttle???). Not knocking the C-82’s or C-119’s, but I’ve never dreamt of being
in the left seat of a Flying Boxcar.
Hey, isn’t that a C-97??? And a C-119??? A HUGE C-124 Globemaster!!!
Wow, an A-26 Invader! A C-54, and a Lockheed Super Constellation. Kath
probably thought I had gone nuts, all wide-eyed and snapping pictures...
of transport planes!!!
We finally went inside the hangar. Yah just gotta love poking around
inside a B-17, wondering what it could possibly be like in the ball turret, and
for the cramped, lonely tail gunner. Over 12,000 B-17 Flying Fortresses
were produced during World War II. More B-24’s were made, but the B-17’s
(think Memphis Bell ) always got the press. At the time of our visit, only
about 40 B-17’s existed in museums; only about a dozen were still flying.
The B-17G in the Dover museum, Serial Number 44-83624, has an
interesting history. It was one of the last B-17’s on active duty in the Air
Force. In 1957, it was retired to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson
AFB, Ohio. It was disassembled at the museum, and flown to Dover in a
C-5 (!) in 1989. It was restored over a seven year period as the 381st Bomb
Group “Sleepy Time Gal”. It’s a beauty.
Facing it is an olive drab C-47 with black and white “invasion stripes”
on the fuselage and wings. The C-47 is a military version of the Douglas
A-26C Invader
Douglas C-54M
Skymaster