B-17 Aluminum Overcast, Calgary June 23-27, 2016

[Crimea_River]

When a friend of mine who heads up the local EAA chapter told me a few months ago that he was working hard to book Aluminum Overcast to make its first swing into Canada with a stop in my home town, I naturally jumped at the chance to volunteer with the many tasks needed to make the visit a success. I also treated myself to a Father's Day gift by booking a ride and ended up on the first flight on the first day, that being last Thursday.

Needless to say, I took tons of photos and a couple of dozen videos and will post here as many as you guys find interesting. Not sure how to post videos though, so I'll need to experiment a bit on that as some are quite large.

I'll start with pics of my flight and the obligatory pre-flight pic. I'm in the white shirt. The pilots are Lorraine and Ken Morris on the far right. Lorraine still flies 777's with United.

Thursday was a beautiful day and the glazing over the radio compartment was removed and replaced with a grille with openings large enough to stick my SLR through. Damn right I held on tight!

The view from the bombardier's position on the outbound leg toward the nearby foothills.

The view out of the navigator's position.

And here's an attempt at uploading a short video. Anyone know the maximum size I can upload?

 

[Shinpachi]

Awesome shots and video, Andy
In my case, I made account for Youtube to link videos to this forum.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Jeff Hunt]

Superb stuff Andy. Great gift to yourself as well.

Jeff

 

[Gnomey]

Great shots Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks all. Not keen on creating a You-Tube account so will continue to try and upload videos.

More shots tonight.

 

[Old Wizard]

 

[Crimea_River]

For the remainder of the day on Thursday, I helped out on the ramp making sure that enthusiasts didn't step over the line between apron and taxi ways, moving passenger step, and, sitting in the tail by the exit, answering a lot of questions from folks who booked a walk-through of the parked aircraft. After mine, there were 7 more fully booked flights on Thursday in glorious sunshine.

 

[Shinpachi]

Nice

 

[Airframes]

Great stuff Andy - looking forward to more.

 

[Crimea_River]

Well, OK then. Here are some more.

The weather on Friday took a turn and there were showers through most of the day. That doesn't stop the airplane from taking up paying customers though so we stayed busy. At 2pm the crew took a break and we set up the ramp for ground tours and let people walk through the plane for 10 bucks. After a short stint of this, we shut that down too due to lightning in the area and I made my way up to the pit from my position in the tail to make sure that no-one was left in the aircraft and then spent a good hour sitting in the co-pilot's seat chatting with one of the other volunteers who also saw it fit to stay on the plane- wouldn't want to get wet and struck by lightning running back to the terminal now, would we????

Here we are waiting out the rain, looking at my knees under the yoke:

When the rain cleared, flights resumed and I took more pics from a position that I could not normally get to in any airshow:

A flypast before turning to the downwind leg, gear just starting to come down:

The 6pm flight time arrived and there were two "no-shows". Well, we can't let seats go to waste now can we? So, I "grudgingly" volunteered to be additional ballast on the aircraft. Two flights for the price of one!

A "selfie by the fifty":

The end of a great day under dramatic skies.

 

[Crimea_River]

A short video taken in the nose on the Friday flight.

 

[Crimea_River]

Bringing her in on a sunny afternoon:

 

[Old Wizard]

She's a beauty.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Wayne Little]

Fantastic Andy....

 

[Shinpachi]

An elegant plane and beautiful kids

 

[nuuumannn]

Great stuff Andy, really neat photos and a great opportunity not wasted.

 

[P.J. Sturges]

Awesome photos! A day you'll never forget I'm sure!

 

[Gnomey]

Excellent shots Andy!