The Wings of Freedom Tour was at the Palomar airport here in San Diego County today, so I took a vacation day to check them out. I know some of you are aviation enthusiasts, so I thought I'd post a couple of pictures.

B-17 Flying Fortress


I was able to get a good close-up look at a B-17 for the first time in my life, and a pretty good look at the tail gunner's station. My father was a small man even by the standards of his day, but he was quite the athlete. Now I see why he was assigned tail gunner duties. He flew seven low-level daylight precision bombing missions.

They also had a B-24 Liberator on display.


And also a B-25J Mitchell.


Two last shots of the B-17G "Nine O Nine" I had a chance to crawl through this morning.
.

They look much bigger from the outside than from the inside. I'm 5'-11" and 165 lb and I had to turn sideways and crouch to move through the plane. My father described a mission where he had to come forward quickly from the tail because the pilot had been killed and the plane went into a skid (the copilot was just a kid - he panicked and froze at the controls). I have no idea how anyone could move quickly in that environment - especially while the plane was skidding into a dive.

I had a million thoughts and emotions going through my head as I looked through that plane.
.