It’s not easy ducking beneath the cockpit and crawling toward the nose of this Boeing B-17 dubbed “Ye Old Pub.” The historic World War II bomber is designed for combat; it’s narrow and austere passageways require finesse to negotiate.
And that’s the idea, says pilot John Hess?—to experience the vintage aircraft as WWII aviators did, claustrophobic spaces and all.
“This is very accurate, the way it was,” Hess says, who’s been volunteering with the nonprofit Liberty Foundation for 14 years.
The group flies historic airplanes around the country to honor both the machinery and the pilots that flew them.
“If they were under fire, the bombardier or the navigator could grab the guns and be able to try and defend themselves,” Hess says, pointing to a set of machine guns and a rudimentary navigation table filling out the alcove in the plane’s nose.
The Foundation is offering paid flights to the public in the Ye Old Pub as well as its P-51 fighter escort this weekend at the Olive Branch Airport in Mississippi.
Fewer than a dozen World War II-era B-17 bombers are still flying today. Roughly 13,000 of the planes were manufactured; about a third of those were lost in combat.
“The sacrifices that [WWII fighters] made for us is just phenomenal,” says Jim Lawrence, co-pilot of Ye Old Pub and a veteran who has served in three branches of the military. “That’s one thing that we promote, is not only the history of this, but what it all means.”
Seeing the world from the same perch as WWII veterans, he says, is the ultimate history lesson.
“To really truly experience it, you need to see her in the air,” Lawrence says. “You need to hear the rattling and the four engines turning.”
Following a deadly crash of a B-17 earlier this month in Connecticut, there have been concerns aboutpassenger safety in vintage aircraft. Federal aviation authorities could consider banning the flights.
Hess says that’s unnecessary. Some protocols may be tweaked after an investigation, he acknowledges, but he insists that it’s an “extremely safe” operation.
“You still have to put that in perspective that how many thousands and thousands of people have been flying in these prior to having a major accident,” Hess says.
A B-17 costs $ 6,000 an hour to fly, which is why the passenger flights are also expensive: $475 per person. But Hess and Lawrence say it’s worth it, and those who don’t have that kind of cash can still tour the plane on the ground for free after the flights.
“You can’t get that with the airplane sitting in a museum,” Lawrence says. “You need to see her in action.”