Reliving history (with video)

HAYDEN - As four massive propellers rumbled and the Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress waited for takeoff Monday, I pondered the many 19- and 20-year-old boys who fought World War II in planes like this.

Sitting there with my seat belt fastened, I didn't know what to expect of the 30-minute trip on a sunny afternoon from the Coeur d'Alene Airport. Boys in those seats all those years earlier faced a perilous unknown aboard B-17s rumbling and waiting for takeoff prior to strategic bombing missions in Europe.

What went through their minds as they looked around the plane at the painted green metal interior and their fellow airmen? Was today the day their plane's luck ran out?

Suddenly the "Nine-O-Nine" replica I was in took off down the runway as the 1,200-horsepower propellers roared even louder and smoke from the engines tinged the air in the hot cabin.

Soon we were in the air and the 70,000 pound bomber, with 103-foot wingspan, banked and our shadow marked a green field on the ground below.

Flying the "Nine-O-Nine" is like driving a cement truck on a go-cart track. That's the way our pilot, Mac McCauley, described it.

Designed in the mid-1930s at the start of aviation, the plane represents the best of America.

"They got it just right," McCauley said.

The original "Nine-O-Nine" bomber flew 140 combat missions in World War II and never had a casualty. It was named after the last three digits of the plane's serial number.

Once our bomber leveled out, I had a chance to poke my head out free into the wind with the hatch removed from the radio compartment.

There is a feeling of air superiority in that position. There also is a feeling of, "Are you sure I'm allowed to do this?"

The B-17s are armed with 12 .50-caliber guns, and reach "indicated air speeds" around 150 mph.

"If you're at 150 indicated at 30,000 feet you're probably going 240 miles per hour," McCauley said. "Flight at that altitude, everybody was on oxygen, everybody was freezing - it's 40 or 50 below at altitudes. The hardest thing they had to do was keep warm."

It was plenty warm Monday as we flew south over Lake Coeur d'Alene, then back north and over Hayden Lake before heading back west to the airport.

McCauley said the engine is so tough that no matter what happens, a pilot can get it back on the ground safely.

"You can blow a cylinder and it still runs," he said. It carries 37 gallons of oil.

"Even if you've got a good-sized leak you're good for a couple of hours," he said. "The whole thing is so durable."

"Right after takeoff, I'll give you a thumbs up, and when you see me do that, you take off your seat belts and it's your aircraft," Steve Arnold, a flight engineer for the Massachusetts-based Collings Foundation, told the nine guest passengers on the flight Monday. "Circulate, there's a lot to see. ... If you get in your jungle-gym mentality it will serve you well."

The nonprofit Collings Foundation's restored B-17 bomber was made by Douglas Aircraft Co. in Long Beach, Calif. under license for Boeing.

It never flew strategic bombing missions because it was made too late (1945) for the war.

It has been painted to look like the original Nine-O-Nine. The foundation's B-17 is one of only 10 still flying in the U.S.

Each guest Monday moved from one position to another inside the cramped interior.

After spending a long time in the radio compartment taking photos and being blown away - literally and figuratively - I jungle-gymed my way to the very front and the 'bombardier' or bomb-aimer nose station.

I enjoyed the bubble alone as we flew over Hayden Lake.

Mike LoBue, of Post Falls, was one of the guests on the B-17 flight.

"My uncle flew in a B-17 during World War II, and he was a radio man on there," LoBue said. "He was shot down over Germany and they had to bail out. I don't really remember how many of his crew made it or not."

LoBue wanted to experience a piece of history.

"The 'Greatest Generation' made that airplane and flew it in a war, otherwise we'd be speaking Japanese or German about now," he said.

The real Nine-O-Nine was credited with downing three Luftwaffe aircraft, and had three swastikas painted on its side to keep score.

America's B-17s were built to outlast a "Thousand-Year Reich" and a thousand more.

Tour the planes

Tours of the planes (also a B-24) continue today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 9 a.m. to noon Wednesday at the Coeur d'Alene Airport. Flight bookings are available before and after walk-through tours.