Catch A Veterans Day B-17 Flight At Arlington Municipal Airport

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This weekend at Arlington Municipal Airport you can catch a flight into history in a World War Two B-17 Bomber, and meet some of the men who flew them.

I got the privilege of sitting down with a World War Two Veteran who was shot down and captured, but lived to tell his story.

It was Air Force Veteran Fiske Hanley's seventh mission over Japan in the B-29 Superfortress.  This mission was at night and suppose to be free of enemy fighters and flak.  Unfortunately, that was not the case on this particular evening.

"When we came up approaching the island at night, flak and fighters were all over everywhere.  A search light caught us and we got shot down, all engines on fire" said B-29 Superfortress Flight Engineer Fiske Hanley.

He survived the jump and being captured, only to spend six torturous months in a prison camp.  With very little food and medical attention, many did not live through the experience.

"I got thirty or forty flak wounds in me, but I lived through it.  The Good Lord looked after me" Hanley added.

The ninety-six year old did recover and came home to the United States a hero.  Just one of the many heroes that we salute on Veterans Day each year.

This weekend  the Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 34 is giving you a chance to fly in one of the only six flying B-17 Bombers left in the country.

"Aluminum Overcast is a B-17, it's been fully restored.  By touring the airplane like we do, we raise money to keep it flying so these memories don't die off" said Tom Peters of The Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 34.

Details: B-17 Flights at Arlington Municipal Airport

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