Not your average day...

Not your average day, on the ramp here at Buchannon Field.
The Collings Foundation (or something like that) is a group that has these old warbirds.

They f'n fly them.
Aircraft, machines that won the war.
Machines which were the top of technology, in their time.
Machines that taught America the finest arts of combining technology and purpose.

The things that stoke the fires, here in the garage, were learned by farm boys on machines just like these.

No, wait, they were learned on these very machines.
What I saw was the real deal.
It was not some approximation or reinterpretation, what I saw. These machines carried life to the fight, they dealt death, they did their job and are still here to tell the tale.

The B25 is shockingly small, for the weapon that threw the first punch at Japan after Pearl Harbor. You could probably fit the whole thing in a semi trailer, if you took it apart and packed carefully.

And the B17, well, it has that bueatiful brutality that I am so fond of. Bristling with guns to shoo away German bad guys.

Both had am essence of purpose with style, remarkably truck-like. No frills or fancy gee-gaws found here. All business. No AC, no heat beyond what may soak through from engines spinning props bigger than me, not many seat cushions to be found as the 'chute to save your life hung by your ass and you could sit on that.

There was a P51 that was offering rides, too. Hearing those twelve cylinders purr on the tarmac, then roar as they pulled polished aluminum into the sky is awesome.
Not awesome in it's typically applied usage, but awesome in that you cannot help but stare and listen and soak in what you are experiencing awesome.

Keep 'em flying!