Memphis Belle
 

The museum in Memphis will be have the Memphis Belle complete .
i wonder if they will be selling rides in it like the rides you can take in Sentimental Journey of the CAF ?

Could we have that in English please?

This that news or just a rumour?

I repeat my request

Oh stewardess? I speak jive; I can translate.

He said that the B-17F Memphis Belle will be rolled out to the public Thursday at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force near Dayton, Ohio. Then he asked whether they would be offering rides to the public as is currently being done with the B-17G Sentimental Journey at the Arizona Commemorative Air Force Museum.

There are times when I wish there was a like option.

Thank you. That makes perfect sense

All apart from the 'stewardess' reference. Not least because I'm male ...

The Collin's Foundation "Wings of Feedom" tour goes around the US every summer, rides are available on their B-17, B-24, and B-25 aircraft. I took a ride on their B-17 when they were at Paine Field (Everett) about 10 years ago. I only wish my WWII veteran dad was still around to take the flight with me - it was awesome and I know he would have loved it...

https://www.collingsfoundation.org/

One of these days I need to visit the Collin's Foundation museum. Last year when I visited Paul Allen's Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum, they'd just gotten in several new tanks (I'd passed a Churchill tank being hauled up Airport Road to the museum a couple weeks earlier). I asked where they'd gotten the new armor and was told they'd been part of the Littlefield collection before he passed. So I asked where the rest of the collection went and they said most of it went to the Collin's Foundation...

It's a reference to one of the funniest scenes in the movie "Airplane". A couple black passengers are talking - one of whom is complaining of severe symptoms of food poising - the stewardess asks what's wrong and the black guy answers in 'jive' - a lingo popular with some in the black community but nearly indecipherable to most white people. So an elderly white lady sitting nearby pipes up and offers to help as she speaks 'jive'. The following conversation in jive between the two black guys and the white lady is hilarious.:E
It's the sort of humor that they'd not be able to get away with in today's PC culture.

Which Memphis Belle?

CAF's B-29 "Fifi" is coming to the northeast and Canada this summer and offering morning and afternoon rides two days of the week locally. Always look forward to Colling's AC as they fly directly over my house in the circuit. A marvelous sight and sound. Just wishing "Vera" would make her way here - guess I'm still partial to Merlins.

Think there may be some confusion as there was also a B-17 painted up as the Memphis Belle and giving both tours and flights earlier this year at the TICO Airshow.

Two years ago, arriving at Oshkosh, we were on the downwind leg, when I heard this exchange:

Tower: "Aircraft calling Oshkosh Tower, say again your callsign."
Slow, Texas drawl: "This is silver B-29, Fifi."

A lovely sight.

I'm currently on holiday in Anaheim, California. When I got out of the car at the hotel the Collins Liberator flew over on a flight out of John Wayne. I've never seen one flying before, a brilliant sight and sound!

Fifi was at the "Historic Flight" museum at Paine Field about five years ago (we have four aircraft museums spread around Paine Field :ok:). I wanted to take a ride but my wife objected to the cost (lesson learned - next time just don't tell her :rolleyes: ). But I stopped there after work and for $10 I got a personal guided tour of Fifi that took close to an hour which was a pretty good consolation (I was literally the only visitor there at the time which was cool but also a little sad given it was a beautiful summer afternoon).

My first experience with the CAF was July 4, 1976 (it was known as the Confederate Air Force back then - before political correctness forced them to change the name). Somehow Colorado Springs had managed to book the CAF for the US Bicentennial weekend. I had a summer job driving a delivery truck for a car dealer in Pueblo - the preceding Friday I was driving around making a delivery when I heard that sound - I looked up and the CAF B-17, B-25, P-38, and P-51 were flying in formation overhead :ok: When I got home from work I asked my dad if we could go up to Springs for the show and he immediately agreed. Fantastic (I remember being shocked at how small the B-17 was in person - I'd always thought of it as a huge airplane after watching movies like "12-O'clock High".)

www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Upcoming/Press-Room/News/Article-Display/Article/1514122/additional-museum-entrance-gate-to-open-for-b-17f-memphis-belle-events-may-17-19/

Sorry, I got excited thinking about going back to Dayton . I am also fluent in gibberish and nonsense :)

The national museum has the times and dates on their website www.nationalmuseum.af.mil

I had a crawl through Kermit Weekes' B-17 at Polk City and remember remarking to an American chap "what a hell of a small space to go to war in". I also had a look inside his B-25 when it was being restored at Chino, memory says it seemed more spacious!

Americans were smaller then................

That was my impression also. Got to climb through "Fuddy Duddy" (before it was re-fitted with the nose turret), B-26 Invader "Late Date" which was absolutely cramped, B-25 "Briefing Time", and B-24 "All American" (now "Witchcraft"). Going through the 24 bomb bay was a challenge - had to side step all the way through between the bomb racks on what felt like a 2x4 on it's short end.

My wife and I lived on a boat for several years when I came across a live-aboard airworthy PBY for sale in Boston for $60K (that was 1981). Tried to talk her into moving - didn't work either. And after climbing through one probably would have been a bit of a squeeze but what a lifestyle that I imagined.;)

Some years ago I was in the National Museum of American Jewish Military History in Washington DC, and looked at a WW II flight jacket. As I understand it, you needed a college degree to be a pilot in the USAAF, so this wouldn't have been made for the malnourished. It was small. Even when I was young and fit, I wouldn't have got close to getting it on, and I'm of average height. Everybody has got bigger, and really bigger, not just fatter, as I have.