on the nose with each one
representing a city visited on its
first North America tour in 1986.
The two camera symbols are for
two projects it took part in, Steven
Spielberg’s comedy movie 1941
and a NBC documentary called All
the Fine Young Men featuring the
Eighth Air Force. The aircraft also
carries five dummy 500lb general
purpose bombs.KEEPING LIVING
HISTORY ALIVE
As one of only a dozen airworthy
B-17s left in the world, and
arguably one of the busiest,
keeping SJ airworthy is a
demanding job.
Pederson and his team
of airframe and powerplant
mechanics, airworthiness
inspectors (licenced by the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA),
which also sends out its own
inspectors) and volunteers who
perform maintenance under their
guidance, work tirelessly to keep
SJ in the air.
Their work is especially
important when preparing the
aircraft for summer tours. While
Airbase Arizona has its own
machine shop to fabricate items
such as panels and other small parts, it
relies on several external vendors to service
reusable parts.
Pederson said: “We’ve got some excellent
vendors right now and they take good care
of us.”
With required inspections and periodic
maintenance being dependent on elements,
including airframe and engine hours, some
of that maintenance is inevitably required on
tour.
For example, on SJ’s most recent North
American tour it was due for an inspectionat the time it was scheduled to be in Fargo,
North Dakota, so Pederson and his team
planned in advance to have personnel in
Fargo to meet the aircraft and carry out the
inspection.
Eighteen pilots at Airbase Arizona are
currently cleared to fly SJ – seven pilots-in-
command and 11 co-pilots. As the Airbase’s
chief pilot, it is Russ Gilmore’s job to keep all18 current on the B-17.
A pilot training manager during his airline
career, Gilmore is ideally suited to the job,
especially since much of that career was
spent in radial multi-engine types such as the
Douglas C-47 and Curtiss C-46 Commando.
The fact that most of the CAF’s pilots fly
for airlines makes Gilmore’s job easier. He
said: “They’re used to the training regimen.
The ground school, the training records,
everything we do is like an airline-type
regimen.”
Additionally, Gilmore is one of only a
handful of pilots nationwide certified as a
vintage aircraft examiner for the FAA.
He explained: “The FAA doesn’t have
anybody that can do type ratings. We trained
a guy 15 years ago from Milwaukee. I gave
him his first flying lessons in the B-17, and we
got him type rated so he could be a national
resource for the FAA, but he’s gone now, he
retired, and they don’t have anybody that can
do these airplanes anymore. So now they’ve
got guys like me that can do it. I
can do type ratings and all that.”
“As a matter of fact, the FAA
just came out on Sunday and
observed me doing a check ride
in the B-17 on one of our guys.
They have to watch me once a
year and make sure I’m doing
everything that I’m supposed to
be doing. And he went away real
happy.”
When asked to pinpoint his
favourite aspect of flying the B-17,
Gilmore’s response was: “It’s a
national treasure. It’s an honour
to be able to fly it and to be
entrusted with that responsibility.
It’s something I take very
seriously.”ON THE ROAD
While SJ winters at its home base
at Falcon Field Airport the CAF
sends it out on the road for the
duration of each summer airshow
season, visiting an average of
60 cities per year in the US and
Canada.
The tours are a great
opportunity for the CAF to bring
SJ to communities that do not
have any locally based B-17s, if
any warbirds at all.
Kristen Purcell has been
a loadmaster on SJ for six years and is a
veteran of numerous tours.
Purcell said: “It’s amazing when we go on
tour how many people have a connection to
this airplane – their father, their grandfather- someone in their family or someone they
know was involved in some way with the
B-17.”
Though the number of living B-17
veterans is diminishing, several still make the
effort to catch SJ either at Airbase Arizona or
on tour. The CAF also encourages surviving
B-17 crew members to sign the insides of
http://www.aviation-news.co.uk 61Sentimental Journey arrived at the CAF as a fire-bomber with no top turret assembly. The CAF
tracked one down during the restoration process. A complete top turret was located in Milwaukie,
Oregon, where a petrol station proprietor had an intact B-17 on top of his premises.The top turret internal assembly. More
passengers could be carried on revenue
flights without this, but the CAF but wants the
aircraft to be as authentic as possible.58-62_b17DC.mfDC.mf.indd 61 06/04/2016 16:31