Fantasy of Flight

Yesterday, I went TDY to a PBY, traveling with my Corvette Club to Polk City, Florida to visit Fantasy of Flight. My "TDY" (temporary duty) was all day long, and a great way to spend a day. Fantasy of Flight is perhaps the world's largest PRIVATE collection of aircraft, featuring no fewer than forty flyable examples from the first and second world wars. It is the dream of Kermit Weeks, who owns everything on the field, and flies everything he owns. The day I visited with the Gulf Coast Corvette Club, we saw Mr. Weeks fly the P-40N, which is a two-seat WW II fighter plane that served throughout the second world war with distinction. Kermit has two of these, and the other one wears the livery of the AVG (American Volunteer Group), better known as the Flying Tigers.

There was so much to see, and our group convoyed from Bradenton to Polk City arriving around eleven, and stayed until closing at 4 PM. With help from a childhood friend who joined us as #15 (allowing us to qualify for group discount), we took advantage of the full package including guided tours. The facility features a 5,000 foot landing strip, as well as a nearby lake where amphibians like the PBY Catalina can land and take off on the water. The PBY is low and slow, but was the primary search and rescue aircraft of the Navy during the war - perhaps the most famous PBY was "Strawberry 5" which spotted the Japanese carriers at the Battle of Midway. My buddy took my picture with Mr. Weeks alongside the P-40N as well - my profile isn't too flattering, and I'd never fit in some of the stuff there. Take for example a "ball turret" from a B-17, as pictured. Our tour guide reminded us that during the war, B-17's would often feature 22 year old pilots (referred to as "the old man") and crews made up of 18 and 19 year old youth - the smallest of which became top turret and ball turret gunners. I wouldn't have fit in that thing, even as a 19 year old when I entered the Air Force.

The B-17 (a non-flyable exhibit) in another picture was a great "walk-through" with narrow passageways in the bomb bay, and gun positions at the waist, top and ball locations. I took quite a number of pictures, and perhaps should offer a second entry later - for now these will have to do, as often I have more words than space in my life's vocabulary - add pictures and I'm one giant tower of babble.