[Boatanchors] Re: Information About B-17's

[Ian]

The WWII planes made the rounds in the San Jose/Silicon Valley/San Francisco
area within the last month.  In Silicon Valley they were on the ground at
Moffett Field for 4 or 5 days.

B-17 Flying Fortress, B-24 Liberator, B-25 Mitchell, P-51 Mustang  -- All
like new airplanes.

Rides were as high as $3,200 for an hour in the second seat of the Mustang
with a chance to be "pilot."

A friend of mine said he'd read somewhere that it costs about $10,000 an
hour to fly the B-17.   Who knows what it costs now with the dramatic
increase in fuel costs.  And the B-17 rides were the least expensive I think
since they could take up more than one passenger.  Several hundred dollars a
ride.

>From the number of times that I saw them in the air over Silicon Valley and
some directly overhead they had quite a few paying customers.  You had "for
pay" walk/crawl throughs during the mid day times and flew morning and
evening,  The on the ground views were more like paying for a movie and some
refreshments.

I guess a lot of the entrepreneurial "trying to become billionaires" in this
area have lots of $$$ to spend on nonessentials.

Several winters ago I had a B-17 tour in Palm Springs at the air museum near
the airport as part of the admission to the museum.  If you're interested in
vintage airplanes it's a good place to see them.  During the winter planes
from some of the cold weather area museums are moved to Palm Springs for the
winter to get into a dry warm climate.

Ian, K6SDE