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TSgt David L.
5
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I haven't been there in years, but the AF museum at Wright Patterson AFB is something everyone should see at least once. Second only to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum in DC, IMO.
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CPT Enrique M.
4
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Edited 6 y ago
pretty awesome.. remember seeing the movie ( I know not 100% factual movie) but it sure made me interested in the history of this aircraft and what these air crews had to do back in WW2.

but the belle itself after the war it was kinda sad the history it went through until the latest efforts of restoration took place which I am glad to see they restored it.
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SSG Robert Webster
SSG Robert Webster
6 y
CPT Enrique M. Why kinda sad? Otherwise she would have been lost to history due to scrapping. The city of Memphis bought her before she could be scrapped. Many years later in the early 1970's she was donated to the Air Force, but the city maintained possession until they could not further their efforts at maintaining or restoring the aircraft (recent history).
And just think that a B-29 (Doc) restoration project may have been the impetus behind the restoration of the Memphis Belle.
http://www.b-29doc.com/docs-story/
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CPT Enrique M.
CPT Enrique M.
6 y
SSG Robert Webster - what I meant to say is that it had to go through that whole process in the first place. Mentality back then was get rid of stuff.. now a lot of projects/ old historical airplanes are being brought back. Hence why we got Wright Pat. As the AF acknowledges that it needs to keep its history. Vs just scrapping it.
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SSG Robert Webster
SSG Robert Webster
6 y
CPT Enrique M. - Actually your assumption is not correct. Back then it was scrap (to include scrap for repair parts), sell, and in some cases put on display. As for the B-17 there are 47 examples world wide with 40 in the US, and 11 that are airworthy. One was sold immediately after production on the civilian market in 1943 to a Canadian airline. Here is a list of the surviving B-17 airframes with short histories - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_Boeing_B-17_Flying_Fortresses
And as far as the AF Museum goes, it has been collecting aircraft since before WWII, when it still belonged to the Army.
Other examples of surviving US Military aircraft can either be read about either in Wikipedia using the Enola Gay as an example: "After the war, the Enola Gay returned to the United States, where it was operated from Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico. In May 1946, it was flown to Kwajalein for the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests in the Pacific, but was not chosen to make the test drop at Bikini Atoll. Later that year it was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, and spent many years parked at air bases exposed to the weather and souvenir hunters, before being disassembled and transported to the Smithsonian's storage facility at Suitland, Maryland, in 1961."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_Boeing_B-29_Superfortresses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_Curtiss_C-46_Commandos#United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_Consolidated_B-24_Liberators
Some of the stories about the ones intended to be kept for preservation purposes are quite interesting; to include how they ended up being wrecked on their final flights, some were restored and others were not.
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CW5 John M.
3
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Someone saw the part she played in history and did a good thing.
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