Most of us with a keen sense of aviation history have wondered what it was like to fly and fight aboard a World War II heavy bomber. We’ve seen wartime footage, and classic war movies like “Twelve O’Clock High” or “Memphis Belle.” But have you ever imagined what it would be like to actually train for – and fly on – your own mission in a legendary aircraft like the B-17 Flying Fortress or B-24 Liberator?
For the past few years, a select group of individuals has gathered in the California desert near Stockton, Calif., to do just that. The Stockton Field Aviation Museum, collaborating with the Arizona Ground Crew Living History Unit, Inc., and the Collings Foundation, will be offering a unique immersive two-day program in which you will learn the essential arts of each crew station of an American heavy bomber including aerial gunnery and bomb-aiming. Then you get to practice your training in an actual flying mission from a WWII combat aircraft using a Norden bomb site to aim and toggle the (inert) payload over a secure range!
For the complete story by Warbirds News, click here.
Photo by the Collings Foundation
