Jellystone Air Park: Liberator Landing

Saturday evening, shortly after block-in at DCA, I received a text message from Brother Baker. He said the CAF Liberator that was visiting the Carolina's Aviation Museum had landed nose gear-up on Runway 36 Right at CLT!

That was news! I knew that Dad had been out at the museum earlier, and was scheduled to ride in the B-29 (also visiting) if the last two seats didn't sell. Unfortunately for him, that flight cancelled. I wondered if he might have worked his way on to the B-24 instead.

I replied to Joe that I hoped Pops wasn't on board. . . Mom would have a cow!

Later, Brother Baker sent the following:

So we went to the Carolina's Aviation Museum today. The CAF had their B-29, B-24, and a P-51 there. All giving rides! I watched the 24 from the parking lot at Sam's earlier today. Looked like a lot of fun. But the 400 price tag was a tad steep for me. . . And at 1100 bucks for the Mustang? Nah.

I dragged Colin and a friend out to the place, found Bob's dad, who works there as a docent, and watched the B-24 crank up and take off, with about a dozen lucky (and 400 dollars poorer) folks on board. Bob's dad was on duty, so we went and poked around in the F-4 cockpit and around the "Miracle-On-The-Hudson" Airbus, and in about half an hour went out to watch the B-24 land.

We heard folks say it had done a fly-by and wondered how much extra they paid for that, but it was getting hot, and we were getting hungry. Well, Colin was getting hungry. You know about me and talking to folks about airplanes!

On the way out, we meet the folks who purchased the B-24 ride. It was clearly them, since they had a large "B-24 Diamond Lil" lanyard around their necks and the ticket large and in charge hanging on their chests! But they were coming in from the road side! I thought that a little odd, but figured maybe they had some sort of VIP entrance somewhere. They DID look excited! I figured they had a good ride. One of them even thanked me for the ride! Me!? What did I do? I was only holding the door, on our way to Dairy Queen for dinner!

So in the middle of my DQ Blizzard, I get a text and a phone call from a buddy I just flew with (we watched the B-24 come in and land last night.) He is flying today (poor sap) and sent me this image. Turns out 36R was out of commission for a while today. Don't know if the gear didn't come down, or it collapsed on the runway.