B-17 The Mighty 8th - Getting Started Tutorial Video Series - Now Available!!!

[Aktungbby]

WOW! With my rudimentary Cessna 172 skills and two still-living uncles, both 94, who flew these to offer advice, I might just manage it. I'm gonna need a big pot o' coffee for the tutorials!

[ikrananka]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

WOW! With my rudimentary Cessna 172 skills and two still-living uncles, both 94, who flew these to offer advice, I might just manage it. I'm gonna need a big pot o' coffee for the tutorials!

Sorry about the length of the tutorials - there's just so much material to cover ! ! ! Keep that coffee coming and I hope you make it through them. The next bunch will be much shorter.

Please pass on my eternal gratitude to your two uncles. Playing a game is one thing but living it in the real world is quite another. Have they spoken much to you about their experiences flying in B-17s?

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by ikrananka

Sorry about the length of the tutorials - there's just so much material to cover ! ! ! Keep that coffee coming and I hope you make it through them. VING INSTEAD! The next bunch will be much shorter.

Please pass on my eternal gratitude to your two uncles. Playing a game is one thing but living it in the real world is quite another. Have they spoken much to you about their experiences flying in B-17s?

Nope! The one, a teetotaler, is still sharp (pilot who still recalls the HP of a Pratt and Whitney engine) and we just moved him into a residence last week after his wife passed; the other is/was a raging alcoholic top-turret/engineer and has now outlasted all his siblings...amazingly, (as of a week ago!) My dad, a brilliant chem. engineer/mathematician, transferred from infantry beach-landing pillbox flamethrower-duty(HE NEVER SAW ANY OF HIS CLASSMATES AGAIN) to B-29's and B-26's and didn't talk much about it either. He was a Nav/engineer on short- 4 crew'd ferry-command crews all over the war: from Dakar to Newfoundland to Tinian; often in unreliable battle-fatigued aircraft! He bailed out three times...and had a great fondness for Dewer's Scotch. ("Pour U a snort?!") Thus: I'm here by dumb luck-he was not happy about me flying Cessnas...so I took up long-haul sleeper team driving instead...and I'm here by even dumber luck!

[ikrananka]

That's a shame, I'm sure they must have some fascinating stories, but I can understand why they may not want to talk about them. Sounds like your father had a hell of a time too.

My father didn't talk much about his experiences, but I believe he was luckier than most in that I don't think he saw any action. He was involved in communication repairs and drove a truck and I believe entered France about 10 days after D-Day. He did get shot once though - but it was friendly fire!!! Someone dropped their rifle and the bullet went up the back of both of my father's legs. The scars were horrendous but he could walk fine so he was lucky. A German soldier was in hospital in the bed next to him and they swapped a few things. One was the eagle and swastika insignia from his uniform which I now have (my father passed away in 1995).

[ikrananka]

The fourth video in this series is now live on YouTube. This video focuses on Training Mission #1: Taxi and Takeoff. I give three different examples of how to taxi and takeoff with increasing difficulty.

[HerrRitter]

I'm one of those people who played the sim, back in the day. It was very enjoyable, especially because those weren't REAL 109's and ****ers shooting at me!


I've flown several tours at different positions (never even tried as pilot or co-pilot. The most memorable was was the belly-gunner. Nice scenery to and from the target. Then, there was the target ... flak, German fighters before and after the target. This was one of the few tours of duty that I flew where both my plane and I survived!