Sentimental Journey

I saw Sentimental Journey, the B-17 operated by the Arizona Wing of the Commemorative Air Force at DeKalb, Illinois DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport (DKB) during DeKalb's 2008 Corn Fest.

It was certainly a strange experience: They shut down part of the airport and brought in all the trappings of a county fair -- food-on-a-stick vendors, midway games, carnival rides. Many people were wearing foam corn hats.

Now, for the uninitiated, Illinois and Wisconsin (my home state) have a bit of an interstate rivalry. The Illinoisans call us "cheeseheads" and we call them "FIBs" (an acronym which cannot be expanded on a family-oriented web site such as this). We have turned the "cheesehead" epithet into a badge of honor, and if you've ever seen a Green Bay Packers football game, you've undoubtedly seen the foam cheesehead hats. (Realistically, there's not much an Illinoisan can do with a moniker such as "FIB".)

To see Illinoisans, a Wisconsinite's sworn enemy, parading around in what is essentially a rip-off of the original cheesehead hat made for a rather bizarre experience.

But, anyway, back to the B-17.

The CAF's commemorative book tells the story of Sentimental Journey: Like many surviving B-17s, Sentimental Journey was manufactured late in the war and never saw action in Europe. She did, however, perform plenty of military service: She was converted to an RB-17G, doing photo mapping in the Pacific and was later converted to a DB-17P, an unmanned, radio-controlled drone during Operation Greenhouse to test the effects of nuclear blasts on aircraft. After her military service she flew 18 years as a fire bomber for Aero Union Corporation before being purchased by the Commemorative Air Force (Aero Union itself was later purchased and is now part of United Aeronautical Corporation).

The CAF likes to brag that Sentimental Journey is one of the most authentically-restored (or words to that effect) B-17s today, and note that the chin, top, ball, and tail turrets are all original and fully operational.