Southport Magazine

Join the Flight!
Take a ride in history in the B-17G
Story by Kass Fincher
Coming to the Cape Fear Regional Jetport this month is an exciting attraction for aviation enthusiasts. The Aluminum Overcast – a World War II B-17 bomber – will be here June 8-10, with ground tours and air tours – weather permitting – available to the general public each day. Reservations are encouraged for the air tours, since each 20-minute tour only takes ten people at a time.

The airplane was built in 1945, too late to see European combat, but it has been restored completely and continues to fly to various airports around the country to offer tours and educational opportunities through its owner – the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA).
This visit will be the fourth for the bomber here, the last being in 2015. When it first arrived here a few years before that, they flew 125 people on it. With the goal being 75 riders per city stop, our little community outperformed the rest of the country that first year, ranking first in air tour participants.
Rich Largent, local chapter president for the EAA, describes how the airplane tours benefit his chapter and our community. “Our goal here is to promote flying, promote aviation and get the community involved,” he relates. “The air tours are a great way to get people to come out to the airport and learn about all that’s offered here. Our local proceeds from the air tours, pancake breakfast and all other fundraisers are to sponsor a young person to go to the one-week Air Academy that EAA sponsors in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. We’ve sent someone every year for the last eight years. It’s around $1500 to attend. Oftentimes we have worked with the Civil Air Patrol here to sponsor one of their Cadets.”
The local chapter’s commitment to young people is also reflected in their Young Eagles program. Unlike some other chapters, who might focus on building experimental aircraft (where the EAA got started) or restoring “warbirds”or antique aircraft, the chapter here is interested in helping young people learn about aviation and perhaps become pilots themselves.
Largent describes the initiative’s inception. “The Young Eagles program was started in 1992,” he says. “One of our members – the late Robert Swanson – was in on the very beginning of this national program. We got involved about six years ago. EAA members realized that often we would go out, fly around, dust off the rust as we say, fly around the pattern a little bit, and it was just one person in the airplane. So folks got together and asked how we could get young people involved in flying, and that’s where the Young Eagles came in.
“Pilots volunteered their services – their time, their airplane, their money, to take youngsters between the ages of 8 and 17 up on a 15-minute orientation flight. The goal in 1992 for the national organization was to see if we could fly one million youngsters by 2003. By October 2003 we hit the million mark. At that point there was some question if we should continue the program since we had hit the goal, but we decided yes, of course! The Young Eagles had become the single most important initiative the EAA had ever started.”
As of today, about 2.2 million kids have flown in the program. The local chapter has eight pilots in the program, and they work with Kiwanis’ Big Toy Day and other community events to offer Young Eagles flying opportunities. Do the children grow up to pursue an aviation career? Due to privacy laws, that is difficult to determine, but EAA estimates perhaps 18,000 of the two million Young Eagles participants have become licensed pilots.
It’s likely that many of those youngsters became fascinated with aviation at an early age, perhaps studying aircraft like the B-17 bombers. Used primarily in Europe during WWII, these airplanes were the most advanced of all U.S. aircraft. The Eighth Air Force flew hundreds of them from bases in England deep into German territory, often without fighter escorts. The B-17G, the Aluminum Overcast model, had 13 machine guns and a formidable design that could withstand heavy artillery damage and still get its crews home.
But of course not all made it back. Of the 12,000 B-17s produced for the war, over 4,700 were lost during combat missions. Today only 12 of these remarkable airplanes can still fly. It’s not by happenstance, Largent explains. “It costs a lot to maintain these airplanes. The people that fly this airplane, the people that come to sell the tickets, the mechanics, they’re all volunteers,” he says. “Their room and board are paid on the tours, but the rest is a labor of love.”
One last personal note. My father was an army lieutenant who flew on a B-17 in WWII as a bombardier and navigator. He sat in the nose of the airplane, where enemy fighters flew right at them; the phrase “12 o’clock high”was literally coined to describe those fighter positions. On his 19th mission, he and his crew were shot down over what is now part of Poland. They were imprisoned in the stalag at Zagan where the Great Escape took place. He had been an airman for only six months; he was a POW for 18 months. At the end of the European war, Patton liberated his prison camp and my father was sent home, only to be reassigned to Japan. Thanks to Truman’s ending the war, he did not end up having to go there.
Given my dad’s experience, it’s no surprise I have a special sentiment for the B-17 Flying Fortress. When the Aluminum Overcast arrives, I hope to fly on her, sitting right in the nose, where I’m sure many a young airman like my father fought and prayed for a safe return.
Join the Flight!
Climb aboard EAA’s B-17G Aluminum
Overcast
June 8-10
Cape Fear Regional Jetport

Special events,
Sat June 9
8:30 – 11:00 a.m. Pancake Breakfast $5
3 p.m. Brunswick
Big Band
bring a chair
and enjoy!

Flight tour:
10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
EAA members $435, nonmembers $475
Ground tour:
2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
$10 individuals, $20 families, Free to
veterans/military