Rode in a B-25 today

Thanks to a friend of mine, I got a 30-minute ride in Panchito, a beautifully maintained B-25J Mitchell. For takeoff and landing I was in the radio operator / top turret gunner's seat, but for the rest of the ride I was bombardier.

Panchito:

Before the flight, I went up the aft ladder to check out the rear compartment:

The two jump seats forward are original crew positions. These two seats in the waist have been added for passengers.

Looking aft toward the tail gunner position:

I didn't try to go all the way back; this is as far as I got:

My takeoff position was forward of the bomb bay:

After takeoff, I was able to unbuckle, lie on my back, and pull myself headfirst through that little tunnel:

At which point, I was rewarded with this view:

Back in position for landing:

Mitchell the cat (a girl) greeted us on our return to the hangar.

Put away nice and snugly:

Absolutely wonderful. Thanks for sharing this!

Totally awesome. 

In reply to BoulderG :

Thank you! I've got more pics I will post later. If I can figure out how to post them, I have some video too.

Okay, wrong Mitchell. But damn, that's the rewards of righteous living. Good for you, man. Thanks for sharing that with us.

Super cool; must have been an amazing experience! Thanks for sharing!

In reply to Duke :

Great post! It must have been an amazing rush.

That's a nice one!  I have a PBJ (Navy version of B25) local to me.

You should probably go watch Catch 22 now.

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.

I believe there are about 40 operational B-25s in the world. Not sure if that includes PBJs or not.

Here are some more pictures, at random.  Owner Larry Kelley in the foreground:

Cool!

It looks like you missed out on some really good strafing opportunities though.

Inside the bomb bay. These bombs are autographed by most of the Doolittle raiders, and Chuck Yeager, among others:

Instruments and guns in the bombardier's position.  There's a very simple adjustable angle bombsight that worked better than the Norden for low-level raids.  The one here was given to Larry by one of the Doolittle airmen, though is is a replica he made.

The 2 guns to starboard are fixed and are part of a group of 6 fired by the pilot. The other 4 are in blisters on the outside of the fuselage:

In reply to Duke :

In reply to Duke :

Until you get your new YouTube channel up and running...

Sweet!  We have a flying B25 here at Willow Run- and now that they sold the B17, I expect to see if flying a lot more often.

In reply to alfadriver :

We also have a flying one in Minot. Ours has eight 50 caliber guns sticking out of the nose. Not sure where the bombardier sits.

That's awesome! Thanks for sharing your photos!

That's crazy cool-thanks for sharing.

VolvoHeretic said:

In reply to alfadriver :

We also have a flying one in Minot. Ours has eight 50 caliber guns sticking out of the nose. Not sure where the bombardier sits.

The gunships actually started out as a field conversion, which then became a semi-official variant.  The idea was devised by a USAAC colonel named Paul "Pappy" Gunn.  There was no bombardier because they were mostly used for ground attack and skip-bombing against Japanese ships, so one wasn't really necessary.

The Pacific theater tended to get leftovers compared to the European theater, so the equipment was much more ad-hoc.  Most of the guns and aluminum used in the conversions were scavenged from wrecks and hangar queens.

In reply to Duke :

Thanks for that information.  Also, please note how flimsy that front landing gear looks.

Ours appears to have taken out a couple of boats.

In reply to Duke :

Our museum curator said that the 50 caliber guns held 9 yards of ammo thus the phrase "The Whole Nine Yards". He was pointing at a P-51 Mustang at the time though. Could you see 9 yards of ammo attached to the nose guns you were sitting next to? I tried to look it up last night, but Wikipedia.org say the saying dates to before the age of war planes.