As I mentioned a while back, I’ve got a passion for World War II bomber planes. I think they’re beautiful in the same way that antique cars, boats, and trains are beautiful. They were designed according to the aesthetic and engineering standards of another era and, for whatever reason, I admire those standards. In many cases, I admire them more than current standards. Machines from the mid-20th Century are not primitive so much as simple, and they are authentic and unique in a way that most modern machinery is not. (Can you tell the difference between the vast majority of modern cars unless you’re close enough to read the markings? I know I can’t, aside from a handful of exceptions.)
Even though the vast majority of warbirds were broken up for scrap or otherwise removed from the earth a long time ago, it is still possible to see one outside of a picture book. There are airplane museums all over the United States that have at least one or two of these craft in their collections. Here in Utah, for example, the museum at Hill Force Base in Ogden contains a number of large warbirds, including a B-17 Flying Fortress (like the Memphis Belle), a B-25 Mitchell, and a B-24 Liberator. However, seeing airplanes in a museum is something like viewing a stuffed bear. You can study the size and shape of the animal, but you won’t see it move. You won’t understand its essence. Museum planes are dead things, mounted and displayed behind velvet ropes, dusted by attendants, lovingly preserved for the ages… but they’re cold and emptied of their spirit.
A far better option is to try and see one of the handful of warbirds that is still flying. When you see a “living” warbird “in the wild” you can hear the roar of piston engines that don’t sound like any engine made today. You can see the sun glinting off wings and plexiglass nose bubbles. You can feel the wind of the plane’s passage and smell the exhaust. Watching a warbird pass overhead, it is possible for one brief moment to imagine what it must have been like on a sunny English morning in 1943, when the skies were filled with machines and the combined sound of their engines made the ground hum beneath a man’s feet.
If you live in the Salt Lake-Provo area, you’re about to have the chance to see not just one but two “living” warbirds. The Collings Foundation “Wings of Freedom” tour, which consists of a B-17 called the Nine O’ Nine and a colorful B-24 known as The Dragon and His Tail, is coming to our area. The planes will be in Heber City on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, then they will fly down from the mountains into Provo on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. At each stop, walkthrough tours will be available (a very reasonable $8 gets you into both planes) as well as flight opportunities.
That’s right, you will have a chance to go for a ride on an authentic warbird. The price for a ride seems pretty steep at first glance — $400 for approximately twenty minutes in the air — but I can tell you from experience that it’s worth every penny. My father and I rode on The Dragon during last year’s Wings of Freedom stop in Heber, and I can honestly say it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. The cost is tax deductible, the money goes toward keeping the planes flying, and you will be able to tell your friends that you’ve done something few other living people have.
Even if you don’t have the scratch to go for a ride, I urge anyone who is remotely interested in seeing authentic living history to try and get out to one of these two tour stops. The Foundation’s mission is to keep these machines in the air where they belong, and they need your help to do it. And for you, this really is a rare opportunity — there are a mere fourteen B-17s still flying in the United States, and only one single B-24, The Dragon and His Tail. How often do you get to see a one-of-a-kind anything these days? Go on, see a piece of history, and know that your support will ensure that others will be able to do the same, hopefully for years to come…
