COMMERATIVE AIR FORCE

After attending the Western Motor Coach Ass. rally in Indio in January, I moved to Blythe, CA where I attended a bluegrass festival, but came down with the flue. After spending several days in the coach, I was feeling well enough to sit in front of the stage and watch the performers. However, when the festival was over and time to move on to Quartzsite, AZ, I thought I was doing OK. I could not shake a persistent cough so I saw a doctor and got some medicine to take. I spent about 5 days in Quartzsite getting a little better each day. My next stop was Mesa, AZ where I am presently. My health is back to normal and I have been very busy taking in the beauty of this area. I ventured into such places as the Superstition Mountains, the ghost town of Goldfield, the firefighter's Hall of Flame, rode the trains at the Maricopa Live Steamers Club, boarded the boat Dolly for an adventure on Canyon Lake, and drove the 50-mile Apache Trail. More on those places in later blogs.

First of all, the RV park where I am staying is the Aztec RV Park in Mesa, AZ. It is a 55+ park with about 300 sites. They have a very active schedule of activities and shuffleboard is very popular.

This post I want to dwell on my adventures at the Commemorative Air Force.

Their museum is located at the end of the runway of the second busiest private plane airport in the nation.

This F-4 Phantom could have one of the CADCs on board that I had worked on years ago.

The Sentimental Journey is one of only 7 remaining flyable B-17s in the world.

They had it up on jacks doing an Annual Inspection.

 

 

Two weeks later, they took it up for a test flight.

 

Once the engines were warmed up, the pilot gave a little throttle......

....checked the taxiway ahead, we moved out.

Looking out of the nose of the aircraft. Can you Imagine the view from here while flying?

Just after lifting off the runway, they veered off and buzzed the hanger! I thought there was only going to be 6 remaining flyable B-17s left!

When I can get a better Internet connection, we will check out the ghost town of Goldfield.