I talked him into climbing up into the B17 so he could answer any questions…what a confined aircraft that is for its size, all war business that is for sure. The p51 was out on a 1hr flight with a passenger, $2200 for 30min $3200 for an hour…so we had to kill an hour waiting for that pla e to come back, and i just really took a back seat after all my questions because midway thru we had an audience around us, theyd overheard gramps telling me stuff so everybody latched on like a tour group and were aski g questions of their own. I think he had a ball getting out of the house yucking it up with some vet brothers of that era trading war stories, plane stories, and just socializing with the general public that wanted to listen to him.
The p51 finally came back right at closing time, we ended up there an hour after close as the pilot was asking him questions, and gramps would tell him what he wanted to know as well as the 4 other people that stuck around chatting with gramps.
I love aviation and have since a kid listening to "pops" tell me stories, but today i had a slight emotional response just looking at these ole boys shooti g the shit like theyd known eachother for yrs, and how great that generation was when men where men and did whatever to get shit done and thats just how it had to be….and to think of how little time we have left with the remaining guys from that era….plus seeing gramps spark to life like i havent seen in yrs was very uplifting too…gunna miss him when hes gone.
Anyways, they had 12 people go for a ride in the b17 for $450/ticket but we got to be front and center to watch he start up so that was waaay cool being so close.
