Flying the B-17 Memphis Belle: An Ohio photographer’s dream come true

I used to be sitting within the radio operator’s station of a World War II B-17 bomber, someplace over upstate New York, when pilot Dave Tallichet walked again and requested me a query I’ll always remember: “You want to fly this thing?”

It was September 1990, and what began as an aerial pictures project had already been extraordinary. I used to be aboard the B-17 that starred within the movie “Memphis Belle” on a six-hour cross-country flight, capturing photographs from the aircrew’s perspective – the view from inside searching – that no guide had proven earlier than. But I had no thought the mission would finish with me on the controls of a Flying Fortress, heading residence to Dayton, Ohio, the place my household waited on the tarmac beneath.

Recently, I took a visit to the Southwest for some long-overdue household visits. While in Palm Springs, California, we made a facet journey to the Palm Springs Air Museum, and I used to be thrilled to reconnect with that very same airplane — the one I flew 35 years in the past.

The flights have been for a guide I used to be engaged on, and my curiosity was to make new shade photographs from the attitude of the aircrew from the within searching. At that point, there have been no books with that standpoint. So the airplane wanted to be a B-17 restored to its wartime look. I had been launched to a pilot who had the best instance. Dave Tallichet’s B-17 had simply been featured within the movie “Memphis Belle.” I made contact with Dave, and we labored out the small print. At that point, the bomber was close to Boston. If I might get to Boston, I might fly with him cross-country, and he would make a cease in Dayton.

I might hardly imagine my success because the preparations fell into place.

Mid-September is the very best time of yr for any form of aerial pictures — golden mild. The flight could be round six-plus hours, and we might take off midafternoon and fly into the late-day solar and the sundown. I flew to Boston with a number of cameras and a complete lot of movie. Way earlier than the digital period.

This was a mission in a B-17. Long sufficient to spend the time to focus on the photographs I needed to create. I loaded my tools into the bomber, which included clamping a motor-driven Nikon to the gunsight within the ball turret, which hangs beneath the physique of the airplane, with a distant set off. The digicam was wanting backwards — the gunner’s view.

Dave and his copilot received settled into the cockpit and shortly all 4 1,200-horsepower radial engines have been operating, and we taxied to runway 27 at Hanscom Air Force Base, straight into the September solar. As we raced down the runway and took off, I fired the Nikon with the distant as we flew towards Ohio. The pictures have been simply the photographs I used to be trying to get.

The subsequent few hours, flying over western Massachusetts and upstate New York, have been crammed with making photographs from every crew place — from the clear Plexiglas nostril, the cockpit, the gunners’ positions, all the way in which to the tail gunner’s view.

I went by means of all of the movie I had introduced with me. At that time, movie was low-cost in contrast with the chance. I packed the cameras and stowed the gear close to the rear door.

What happened subsequent remains to be nearly past perception.

“Come on,” Dave stated, motioning me to comply with him to the cockpit, the place the left seat was vacant. “You sit there and get comfortable.” I put my toes onto the rudder pedals, and he stated, “Grab that yoke.” Then he informed me what to not contact and pointed to the compass and stated, “Just go that way.” The copilot informed me that I had the airplane. For the subsequent a part of an hour, I can solely say that goals do come true.

As it started to get darkish, Dave took over, and I used to be in a position to stand between the cockpit seats. The American panorama unrolled beneath us. After some time, Dave pointed to a glow on the horizon forward and stated to me, “That’s Dayton — your hometown.” We landed on runway 24 left and taxied to the ramp. I knew that ready for us was my spouse Rosann, my three children, my dad and mom, and my lifelong pal Paul. Dad’s description tells the story: “We could hear the bomber before we could see it. And then like an apparition from another age, a fully restored combat bomber appeared onto the brightly lit tarmac. The pilot cut the switches, and the four propellers spun to a stop.”

Back within the cockpit, Dave slid the window again and seemed all the way down to the ramp. He checked out me and stated, “Is that your family?” “Yep,” I stated. He then stated to me, “Well then looky here, there is only one way out of here for you and that’s through the nose hatch — just like Gregory Peck in ‘Twelve O’Clock High’ — and don’t screw it up!” That is what I did, by no means having completed that earlier than. I let myself down, and there was my household and Paul, who simply walked as much as me, and we shook palms.

The B-17 from the 1990 film “Memphis Belle” now in Palm Springs is being returned to flight standing by Dave Tallichet’s household and can quickly be on the airshow circuit once more. Dave, a WWII one hundredth Bomb Group veteran B-17 pilot, handed away in 2007. He was a larger-than-life character.

Blue Skies and Tailwinds is offered by SNC, a global aerospace and defense firm, with assist from the Wright State University Aviation Science and Technology Program. The collection is produced on the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO.

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