Flight aboard iconic B-17 'Liberty Belle' a historic thrill
The "Liberty Belle" is one of just over a dozen B-17 bombers still flying. KATU.com's own Bill Roberson took his own trip on this historic aircraft. Here's his story.
HILLSBORO, Ore. – The stationary aircraft strained and bucked against its brakes as the pilot brought the full power of the four Wright Cyclone radial engines to bear, the surging 4,800 horsepower barely held in check as he waited for clearance from the tower to take off.
The collective sound of the massive air-cooled engines’ barely muffled exhaust roar and the four giant propellers whipping the air created a cacophony so loud inside the airplane that even yelling to another passenger was futile. Most on board wore earplugs.
Finally, the pilot, Robert Hill, released the brakes and the 65-year-old Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress “Liberty Belle,” one of the last airworthy examples of one of the most iconic aircraft from World War II, lumbered down the runway of the Hillsboro Airport and lifted into a mostly cloudy sky.
Climbing quickly to just below a thick cloud deck at about 2,000 feet, the wall of mechanical noise and the roar of air rushing past the aircraft never really let up even as the big bomber cruised at partial power.
Scrambling around the interior of the airplane once given the OK to do so by the flight crew, it was easy to visualize B-17 bomber crews taking up positions for long flights into the hostile skies above Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe almost seven decades ago.
In missions that lasted up to 10 hours at altitudes up to 35,000 feet – where jets travel now – B-17 crews, usually 10 men all well under the age of 30, would fly these thin-skinned, unpressurized bombers into skies filled with exploding anti-aircraft fire and highly-trained German pilots flying advanced Messerschmitt fighter planes. 
Their only protection: a dozen or so .50 caliber machine guns mounted throughout the plane and a limited amount of ammunition.
On good days, P-51 Mustang fighter planes, known as “little friends” to bomber crews, would accompany the waves of B-17 “Forts” headed to bomb well-defended Nazi targets. But on many missions, the B-17s were on their own.
As the waves of planes made their way to their targets, temperatures could plummet to 40 degrees below zero at high altitudes. Crew members donned lined flight suits that made them look like Eskimos except for the oxygen masks they wore that kept them conscious so far up.
B-17s have no insulation, no heaters, no toilets, no cabin pressurization and zero creature comforts. They are pure instruments of war, designed to drop ordnance on the enemy and then return to base as many times as possible.
Of the more than 12,700 B-17 bombers built, more than 4,500 – about 1 in 3 – were lost during the war. More than 45,000 men would never come home from their B-17 sorties into enemy airspace.
Yet, U.S. crews climbed into these planes time after time to beat back the horror of Nazi fascism that was choking the life out of Europe. They knew the odds, and they went anyway. They had faith in their airplane, and in each other.
The toughness of the B-17 is legendary. The aircraft could absorb enormous amounts of damage and still claw its way back home or make a somewhat safe landing. B-17s would return from missions riddled with bullet holes, often missing parts of their tails, wings and noses and limping in on one or two engines.
Once the planes ran out of ammunition for their guns over enemy airspace, they were reduced to being live target practice for the Luftwaffe, which tore them to shreds. German airmen aimed for the B-17’s pilots, the engines and the fuel tanks. The horrifying results were often captured by their gun cameras.
But in 2010, the beautifully restored Liberty Belle is cruising light, its compliment of .50 caliber machine guns still in place – now silent reminders of the limited protection these relatively slow-moving aircraft, even by 1945 standards, possessed in the face of a desperate and skilled enemy.
On this flight, journalists and photographers crawled through the Liberty Belle, one of just about a dozen B-17s still flying, and one of just a very few that still gives rides to the public.
The remainder of the thousands of B-17s turned out by Boeing that survived the war are gone now.
Most were cut up for scrap after the war or lost one by one in other fights or on non-military missions. Indeed, the Liberty Belle was a turbine engine test-bed before it was restored. Locally, of course, another B-17 was famously turned into a gas station. A few other survivors sit silently in museums.
All of the current flying B-17s never saw action in the war. The Liberty Belle was built in 1945, just before the cessation of hostilities with Japan. By then, the larger B-29 Superfortress was the bomber aircraft of choice, including for the delivery of the first and only atomic weapons used in anger.
While the 65-year-old Liberty Belle cruises above Hillsboro area on our short flight, I make my way across the very narrow plank that traverses the bomb bay (ropes for handles!), duck down below the cockpit and into a small passage that leads to the nose cone, bumping my head so hard at one point that I start bleeding. I’ll do it twice more before the flight ends.
These planes were not designed with input from OSHA, or apparently from people taller than 6 feet.
Up in the nose of the aircraft, a small seat behind the very complicated-looking bombsight perches you in front of a spacious Plexiglas nose cone that affords a breathtaking view of the Earth moving slowly by below.
Of course, the view for the bombardier during the war was slightly different, as tracers and anti-aircraft rounds exploded all around and German fighter planes took aim. 
However, it is also easy to imagine the welcoming coast of England coming into view for a B-17 crew that has survived yet another terrifying bombing run. The nose is the best seat on the aircraft, by far.
A warning bell rings and I bump my head yet again while exiting the nose cone as the gaggle of media representatives shuffles back to the make-shift seats set up inside the aircraft.
Robert Hill throttles back the four engines and lowers the landing gear, which lock into place with a loud THUNK as the landing strip comes into view.
Below, cars are stopped along the roadway adjoining the airport and people are pointing cameras at the Liberty Belle as she flares for a soft landing on the big balloon tires slung under the wings.
As the pilot taxis back to the Aero Air terminal, blue smoke mixes with the exhaust from each engine. Each nine-cylinder Cyclone engine burns a gallon of oil and many gallons of avgas – per hour. Being green and clean was not on the minds of engineers during the war. Performance and strength trumped all.
The Liberty Belle comes to a stop on the tarmac outside the Aero Air terminal in Hillsboro and the four engines spin down to silence. Liberty Belle crewmen open the tiny entry door that is covered with veterans' signatures and we spill out of the cramped quarters into sunlight tinged with exhaust smoke.
From the inside, the plane seems tiny and cramped, but from the outside, it is a huge beast of engines and aluminum surfaces. Its size is deceptive, and I realize how spoiled I am by the placid, roomy (but boring) accommodations of modern air travel.
- View high-resolution photos from a flight aboard the Liberty Belle
- Watch a report from KATU's Joe English
One of the last people out of the aircraft is Clayton Kelly Gross, an Oregon native and P-51 Mustang fighter pilot during World War II – one of the “little friends” who escorted hundreds of flights of B-17s into battle. 
Gross is a certified Ace with 6 documented kills during the war.
Gross is also one of only a few pilots to down a legendary Messerschmitt ME-262 – the first jet plane ever used in combat. Gross’s Mustang, good as it was, was no match for the Nazi jet, which was developed too late to turn the tide of defeat for the Germans.
Gross recalled his interlude with the 262, which had an easy 100-mile-per-hour speed advantage over his already potent prop-driven Mustang, and told a remarkable story that followed his victory in the air.
Gross said he was flying his Mustang at about 12,000 feet when he spotted the ME-262 flying at about 2,000 feet. Diving on the jet, he was able to bring his P-51’s guns to bear on the twin-engine jet before the enemy pilot could utilize the greater speed of his aircraft.
The German pilot, while injured, survived and many years later he met Gross at a war pilots’ convention. Gross said the German pilot thanked him for saving his life.
He explained that his injuries from Gross’ attack took him out of the war, saying that if he had continued to fly the jet, he did not think he would have survived more missions.
Gross added his signature to the doorway of the B-17 after the flight, his first ever in one of the big bombers. Now partially blind in one eye and fitted with hearing aids, Gross had little trouble rambling around inside the B-17 while it was in flight and proudly circled the big bomber after it came to a stop.
Following the flight, Gross watched as another contingent of local media members boarded the bomber and the pilot again spooled up the big engines in a fog of oil smoke and prop wash.
In a repeat of a scene burned into many surviving veterans' memories, the hardy Boeing Flying Fortress roared down the runway once again, gently lifted one wheel off the ground and then another as it slowly climbed skyward, tracked by light trails of blue-tinged exhaust and the roar of the four radial powerplants.
Instead of a bombing run, the Liberty Belle is on a different mission now, according to the Liberty Foundation, who restored the Liberty Belle to flying form and tours it across the U.S.A.
They want the aircraft to remind all Americans of the enormous courage pilots like Clayton Gross and other aviators summoned by flying in airplanes that were frighteningly fragile by modern standards, but in which they fought to turn back a tide of evil in a war that is often romanticized but in reality was bloody, brutal and hugely expensive both in terms of men and machines.
They say they keep the Liberty Belle flying to honor those of the Greatest Generation, who are now fading away while the country enjoys the fruits of their immense sacrifice during the war and their postwar efforts to raise the United States to an economic and military superpower.
Flights aboard the B-17 Liberty Belle, which costs about $5,000 an hour to operate, are $430. Members of the Liberty Belle Foundation can fly at a discounted rate. Flight schedule.
