OWLS HEAD

While Brunswick will play host to the Great

State of Maine Air Show later this month, featuring modern warplanes and the Navy’s Blue Angels, I had the opportunity to hitch a ride on an aircraft from another era.

It was aboard the “Sentimental Journey,” a B-17G Flying Fortress bomber — one of less than 10 in the world still flying today. The plane, which belongs to the Commemorative Air Force out of Mesa, Arizona, will be part of this weekend’s Wings & Wheels Spectacular at the Owls Head Transportation Museum.

Monday’s half-hour flight, which carried other members of the media and two World War II veterans, took off from Knox County Regional Airport in Owls Head. Under clear blue skies, we enjoyed views of the Maine coastline and many offshore islands.

But it is the ride I will remember most.

Seated between the bomb bay compartment and a gunner’s window, the fuselage seemed so tiny. It was hard to believe that this plane once carried up to 8,000 pounds of ordinance on a given mission.

I was completely surrounded by gray sheet metal. No way was that stuff going to stop any bullets.

Four engines demanded my attention as they roared to life. The next thing I noticed was the smell of oil, and the plane’s awesome power translated through the vibrations of the aircraft.

Boy was it loud — and it got even noisier during takeoff.

The actual flight was surprisingly smooth, and ended way too quickly.

Because the Sentimental Journey is an authentic, fully restored B-17, I found myself trying to imagine what it must have been like to be a crew member going on a bombing mission during WWII.

“We have fun on days like today,” said Travis Major, 61, of Phoenix, Arizona, our pilot and a volunteer with CAF. “But it wasn’t fun for them back in 1944.”

Plane’s history

The Sentimental Journey rolled off the Douglas assembly line in late 1944 and was accepted by the Army Air Corps on March 13, 1945. Manufactured too late to see service in the European war, the aircraft was assigned to the Pacific theater for the duration of the war.

Thereafter, it was used as a photo-mapping plane, air sea rescue craft, as a “mother ship” during postwar atmospheric nuclear weapon testing, and finally as a civilian aircraft fighting forest fires.

On Jan. 14, 1978, it was donated to the Arizona Wing of the Commemorative Air Force, thus beginning the process of returning the plane to its WWII B- 17 Flying Fortress status.

“It’s lots of fun,” said Major, who has been with the CAF for three years. “But it’s not an easy plane to fly. It’s very demanding on takeoffs and landings, especially with crosswinds. It was designed to fly well at 35,000 feet … .”

Also on display at the museum’s Wings & Wheels Spectacular on Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. will be Mark Murphy’s P-51 Mustang “Never Miss ” and the B-25 Mitchell “Axis Nightmare” from the Tri- State Warbird Museum in Ohio.

For more information, visit owlshead.org.

pgabrion@timesrecord.com

DISCLAIMER: Patrick Gabrion’s daughter, Sophie, is the public relations and marketing manager of the Owls Head Transportation Museum.

Wings & Wheels Spectacular

Air show

• Aug. 5-6 (Saturday, Sunday), 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

• Admission: $25 (Free to members, children under 18, active-duty service members and career retired veterans with at least 20 years of service.)

Owls Head Transportation Museum

Museum Street, Owls Head, Maine 04854 Telephone: (207) 594-4418 Open daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Website: owlshead.org

The B-17G

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

Type: Heavy/strategic bomber

Manufacturer: Boeing (later on, Vega and Douglas)

Maiden flight: July 28, 1935

Introduced: April 1938

Theater of war: World War II

Number produced: 12,731

Status: Retired in 1968

DIMENSIONS Crew: 10 Wingspan: 103 feet, 9 inches

Length: 74 feet, 4 inches Height: 19 feet, 3 inches Empty weight: 36,134 lbs. Maximum takeoff weight: 65,500 lbs.

PERFORMANCE

Power plant: (4) Wright R-1820-97 Cyclone Turbo Supercharged Radials

Horsepower: 1,200 hp

Maximum speed: 263 knots (302 mph)

Service ceiling: 36,400 feet

Rate of climb: 900 feet/min

Range: 3,750 miles

Armament: Guns: (13) 0.50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns

WARTIME MISSION

Heavy bomber with armament with aerodynamic features. The first B-17s went into combat in 1941 by the British Royal Air Force. In the Pacific theater, they earned a deadly reputation with the Japanese and were legendary for their ability to return home after taking brutal poundings. They served in almost every theater of World War II and dropped more than 640,000 tons of bombs.