B-17 Tour

Just got back from a business trip to Phoenix. While I was there I found a neat little aircraft museum at Falcon Field outside of Phoenix. It is the Commemorative Air Force Museum. They have about twenty planes dating from WWI through Vietnam including an F4 Phantom, two B25’s, two MIG,s, an Avenger and a fully restored operational B17. The B17 was the hilight. Got to tour the entire interior which was restored to WWII vintage. Amazing. Apparently you can even hire it for an hour flight. Lots of 1/48th and 1/72nd scale models on display also. Recommend it if your in the area.

Any pic’s?.

That’s the Southwest branch of what used to be called the Confederate Air Force. They changed the name to Commemorative Air Force a few years ago. That B-17 was once the best preserved flying B-17 in the world. I think some others have been better restored since. It’s also one of the few preserved B-17s that actually saw combat.

I got down there a few years ago. It’s a nice museum. Has the Champlin Fighter Museum moved yet? They were at the same field. The Museum of Flight in Seattle bought the entire collection a year or so after I was there. I know it was scheduled to move to Seattle when they got a new wing on the museum built, but I don’t recall what the scedule was.

When I was there I was disappointed to miss the He-111. The CAF had one based there near Phoenix, but it was off getting repainted when I was there. I’ll never get a chance to see it now because it crashed about a year later.

Did you get any pictures?

Bill

I was lucky enough to see the southwest wing of the CAF’s HE-111 and their B-17 “Sentimental Journey” years ago in Scranton PA at an airshow. I got to tour the interior of the HE-111. It was something Ill never forget.

Sorry no pictures. Didn’t have my camera with me. The Champlin Museum has moved.

You’ll find the Champlin aircraft at the Boeing museum in Seattle. They’ve done a nice job displaying them.

At the USAF museum in Dayton, Ohio they have the B17-G Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby that saw combat and was restored at Dover Air Force Base and then had a one time flight to Dayton. The nose art was restored by the original painter and the aircraft flew to Dayton with its original pilot. I have many photographs of the restoration. If anyone wants some of them I can scan them in and e-mail them to you

Richard

I knew it was moving at some point, I didn’t know the move was finished yet. BTW, the Museum of Flight claims to be unafiliated with Boeing, even though their board of directors are mostly Boeing mucky mucks, they are at Boeing Field, and Boeing donates a fair bit of money and material to them.

I need to get back to Seattle one of these days and check out the MoF again. Until 2003 I lived only 10 or 15 miles from the place. I live near Portland now, which is only 2 1/2 hours drive away, but I haven’t entered the county since I sold my house up there. The freeways there are so bad that it’s becoming gridlock 24/7.

I also want to go up to the Flying Herritage Museum and Sturmbirds. Both are north of Seattle. Flying Heritage is Paul Allen’s museum. He has set out to collect and restore very rare aircraft. Sturmbirds is a factory producing brand new Me-262s. They started out restoring the 262 from the US Navy museum and while they were at it, they made a complete set of plans to build brand new aircraft. The only significant difference are the engines. They figured going with GE engines was safer than trying to reproduce the original Jumos.

One of these days I’m going to make the road trip…

Bill