B-17 "Aluminum Overcast" Displayed at Leesburg Airport

The runway was made clear for the “Aluminum Overcast”, on Saturday, as it flew in for a at the Leesburg Executive Airport.The event kicked off on Saturday as part of the nationwide Salute to Veterans tour, which allowed local residents the chance to experience, firsthand, the historic war bird that helped turn the tide of World War II.

On Sunday, Crew Chief Travis Willett said that the airplane, a Boeing B-17 G flying fortress, is the latest and most produced of all the B17 models during WWII.

Built under license from Boeing by the Vega Aircraft company, which is now part of Lockheed Martin, the aircraft was delivered to the Army Air Corps in May of 1945. Unfortunately, it was too late for the plane to have seen any combat overseas, Willett said, even though it’s the real thing.

“It came off the same assembly lines built by the same people who built the other ones that were serving overseas,” Willett said. 

At the end of the war, Willett said the airplane was sold as surplus from the military inventory for $750 in 1946. It served various roles since then such as an aerial mapping platform and a sprayer forestry service aircraft, he said. it was repurchased and reconfigured back to its original form beginning in 1978.

Today, the aircraft is owned by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) out of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where volunteers take the airplane on tours for about nine months out of the year. The airplane has flown more than one million miles.

“It goes to pretty much every state in the continental United States,” Willett said. “We're all volunteers so we go out for two weeks at a time and then another crew takes it for two weeks. We just kind of rotate out. Some guys are retired while a lot of [volunteers] have full time jobs. So they take their vacation in order to be here but it's a lot of fun.”

Over the weekend, the aircraft was available for tours as well as 20 minute flights. On Sunday afternoon, resident Rich Rudnicki had the opportunity to purchase a ticket for a ride.  

“It was absolutely incredible. Phenomenal. It was one of my bucket list rides,” Rudnicki said, whose mother had experienced the routine bombings of B-17 aircrafts during World War II. “You're looking out the back of the plane, at the scenery behind you, or at the front of the nose looking down, and it's just like God's great Earth all in front of you. It's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.”

Resident Ken Nysmith said he also bought tickets to fly in the plane. After watching the aircraft fly back and forth over his house all weekend he thought it might be something interesting to do.

“It’s just a fascination,” Nysmith said.

The “Aluminum Overcast” is scheduled to leave the Leesburg area around 10:15 am on Monday, August 22, before flying to Trenton, NJ.
Pilot Neil Morrison, who has flown the aircraft for eight years said it visits two cities a week.

“We are on the road touring from April all the way through November,” Morrison said.  “It's a four engine airplane with 1200 horsepower per engine. It's physically big. It has over a 100 foot wingspan but is a delight to fly. A gem to fly.”

Ticket sales from the event will go towards maintaining the actual aircraft. For more information on upcoming tours visit www.b17.org/tour.