Air War WW2 Portal 
Latest News about Air War Research related subjects
2007
August
World War II bomber flies into Lexington
By Jim Warren
jwarren@herald-leader.com
Taxiing along the pavement, the old airplane shakes, rattles and groans, as if feeling its 60-plus years in every joint and rivet.
The plane’s aluminum skin, seared by the August sun, makes it unmercifully hot inside. Cables stretch just above your head, connecting the pilot’s controls with the tail surfaces at the rear. Your seat, fabric stretched over metal tubing, is maybe a little more comfortable than a camel’s hump.
But then the four radial engines rev up to an ear-splitting roar, and the huge old bomber hauls itself into the air and comes alive. All concerns about comfort vanish, because you’re flying back into history.
That’s what it’s like aboard the Liberty Belle, a World War II B-17 bomber that rumbled into Blue Grass Airport Thursday for a two-day visit to Lexington. Owned by the Georgia-based Liberty Foundation, the plane will be open for on-the-ground public tours Friday, and for rides on Saturday. The plane will be based at the Aviation Museum of Kentucky at the airport while it is in town.
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June
“Lost Squadron” P-38 to Fly Again
By Edward Colimore
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
From the time the squadron left the west coast of Greenland, the sky was filled with clouds, the water below was packed with ice floes and the temperature was below zero.
Pilot Brad McManus was flying one of six P-38 Lightnings that accompanied two B-17 bombers to England during World War II when insurmountable weather forced them back.
Eight hours later, they ran out of fuel and crash-landed on the east coast of Greenland; McManus went down first.
Today, 15 years after one of the P-38s was recovered from the ice, restored and dubbed "Glacier Girl," the plane is set to take off from Teterboro Aiport in New Jersey to complete its 1942 mission.
McManus, 89, a Phoenixville man who is the surviving member of the lost squadron, will fly for about 100 miles alongside the vintage aircraft in another plane piloted by Jim Beasley Jr., a Philadelphia lawyer and aviation enthusiast.
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May
F-16s of the RNeth AF from the Leeuwarden Air Base will fly during commemoration at Margraten a Fly-By. This will happen on sunday May 27th 2007. Every Year a commoration is held at the Margraten Cemetery to remember the soldiers who gave their lives for our freedom.
Your Webmaster,
Ed Ragas
