Recently I was able to fulfill a long time ambition of mine and take a flight aboard a B-24 bomber. The Collings Foundation of Stow, Massachusets, resored a B-24 "Liberator" bomber in the late 1980's and has toured the country with it every year since. While I had seen the "All American" before, and been inside it on the ground, I had never had the opportunity to fly in it - until now. The day was Sunday, June 13th, 1999, and the location was Corvallis, Oregon, on a beautiful, sunny Northwest day. Follow these pages for the full story!

NOTE: I did NOT skimp on the photo resolution and some of these are sizable. They will take some time to download - but they are worth the wait!
 

Here's a few photos of the beautifully restored Collings Foundation B-24 aircraft, the All American:
 

The All American over San Diego Naval Base. The B-24 was originally designed and
produced in San Diego by Consolidated Aircraft.

Photo taken circa 1989.

The All American at home in the clouds (at much higher altitude than we gained!).

The All American (above and below) at the Sothwest Florida Airshow in Punta Gorda, Florida, 1989.

 

This photo of me in the All American's bomb bay was taken in 1989, at the Punta Gorda airshow.
The photo was snapped by my son Zac, shown here, then six years old and already going with daddy to the airshows...
 

The Collings Foundation is a non-profit group that also has a beautifully restored B-17 bomber that tours with the All American.  The B-17 is called the "Nine-Oh-Nine". And the All American was actually repainted this year in the colors of the "Dragon And His Tail", a tremendous and extensive (and decidedly un-PC for these times) paint job. The original Dragon flew with the 43rd Bomb Group out of Ie Shima in the Pacific during the war. This is what the original Dragon And His Tail looked like:
 

I began monitoring the 1999 tour route of the All American in January. The schedule is posted sometimes just weeks before it arrives in a given area so its not always easy to know when it will be nearby. But I found that it would be somewhere near home (Portland, OR) in early June, and I made contact with the local tour host, Carl Gustafson, in order to reserve a spot for me on one of the flights. Carl flew on the B-24 with the Eighth Air Force out of England during the war and shared several stories with me - but that's for another time!

The "Dragon" (as the All American was now known) would be in Corvallis, Oregon, on June 12th through the 14th. So I made arrangements to get on one of the evening flights, known as a "Dusk Patrol". Corvallis is a good two hours from home so I would have to leave early to get there. A asked my 15 year old son Zac if he wanted to accompany me, and he did (plus he got driving experience!). The weather was perfect as we set out south for Corvallis, very high light clouds, light breeze, 72 degrees. The drive down was uneventful except for the missing sign for directions to the Corvallis airport. I learned later that the Corvallis airport has a 6000 foot runway, ideal for these big planes.

Upon arrival we set out to walk through both aircraft. It was quite a treat. We took several photos and spent time just looking into all the various areas of each plane. To follow along with our trip through the planes and the flight, go to the next page.

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