One last flight
Telegraph | News | Donors let the Sally B fly again
A wartime bomber will be able to make one more historic flight despite European insurance regulations that have made it too expensive to fly.
Britain's only airworthy B17 Flying Fortress, the Sally B, will join Spitfires, Hurricanes and Lancasters to celebrate the 60th anniversary of VJ Day with a flypast at the Blenheim Festival of Flight on Aug 14.
It was feared that the aircraft would be grounded after EU regulations put it in the weight category of an airliner, increasing its insurance five-fold.
Francis Rockliff, the festival's director, described the re-classification of the Flying Fortress as "European bureaucratic lunacy", but sponsorship by Virgin Atlantic and an anonymous American donor has made its appearance possible.
Good news - I must try and go - but if it really is its last flight might I suggest a slightly different flight plan - rather than going west to Blenheim a more South East route would take it over the Channel, and Brussels isn't that far, even if it were fully loaded...
Comments
I like your thinking. However to really celebrate VJ in style would require a special kind of bomb load...
Posted by: Mark Holland | June 16, 2005 10:39 AM
Hey Tim, am making the rounds to let my fav bloggers know I am back to posting again!
Posted by: sharon ferguson | June 16, 2005 5:41 PM
Definitely...well within operational range.
Posted by: Sachem | June 16, 2005 10:16 PM
I have this image in my head now ... I'm smiling. :D
Posted by: wonkotsane | June 17, 2005 12:44 PM
My uncle Ray died three years ago. He was formerly a waist gunner in a B-17, and one of the first over Berlin. He might suggest that the run over Berlin be made again. This time with the intention of removing the anti-American, socialistic government that has repeatedly made a mockery of the hundreds of thousands of American dead, the billions of dollars helping Germany and France with the Marshall plan and the fifty years sheltering them from the soviet menace.
When I see Schroeder and Chirac chastising England for being successful while they are mired in their own wrong doing, I think I might also volunteer for this last "mission of the Sally B".
Is it possible to make a slight detour over Paris?
Posted by: Ray | June 19, 2005 5:37 PM
Yes, but who is enforcing these "European regulations"? Have the Brits become a nation of Gauleiters and spineless collaborators? Far better to bring the Sally B home where she belongs (and will be appreciated in all her airborne glory) than rotting away in an English hanger.
Posted by: Stuart | June 20, 2005 2:11 AM