I was sitting in the radio operator’s station of a World War II B-17 bomber, somewhere over upstate New York, when pilot Dave Tallichet walked back and asked me a question I’ll never forget: “You want to fly this thing?”
It was September 1990, and what started as an aerial photography assignment had already been extraordinary. I was aboard the B-17 that starred in the film “Memphis Belle” on a six-hour cross-country flight, capturing images from the aircrew’s perspective – the view from inside looking out – that no book had shown before. But I had no idea the mission would end with me at the controls of a Flying Fortress, heading home to Dayton, Ohio, where my family waited on the tarmac below.
Recently, I took a trip to the Southwest for some long-overdue family visits. While in Palm Springs, California, we made a side trip to the Palm Springs Air Museum, and I was thrilled to reconnect with that same airplane — the one I flew 35 years ago…