A Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress taxis in for display at Thunder Over Michigan, 2005.

A look at a Boeing B-17 Top Turret position, restored to feature every detail including the ammunition bands that supplied the twin, .50 caliber machine guns up top.

Featured art is the insignia of the Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress restoration, "Thunderbird."

The Flying Fortress could have been dubbed one of the first AC Gunships of its generation. Fifty caliber gun emplacements included four in the nose, two in the top turret, one in the radio room aft of the top turret, two in the waist, two in the belly turret, two in the tail.

No shortage of itnerest when the giants of World War II arrive at an Air Show venue. Thanks to the internet, knowledge of their arrival can be as much as nine months before the event itself, which enhances crowd draw at Air Shows already gathering as many as 50,000 to 1,000,000 people annually and individually, depending on the venue.

Air Shows and Air Racing events are rapidly becoming a Sponsor's dreamscape as they are drawing as many fans, if not more, than Baseball, Football, Basketball and other non-Motorsports events.

Oshkosh EAA AirVenture has drawn as many as 750,000 in a given year during one week of continued operations, while three days at Nellis AFB's Aviation Nation Air Show, can produce between 750,000 and over 1,000,000 fans in attendance, along with a televised display to over one million service men and women around the world during a two-day weekend.

Entrepreneuers like Jeff Landers and Bob Avery are getting this message, along with the Cities, Communities and Sponsors they work with.

Sadly, Reno never got the message, or Honey the Air Race Mascot ate it, and their intent is to shut down the fabled National Championships in exchange for a concrete Business Warehousing and Manufacturing Center, which will cover Stead Airport, Nevada, where the Air Races have been held since 1964.

This will result in the eventual closing the field via inside encroachment, Land Fraud and Fraud directed against the Federal Government, aided and abetted by parties within. RARA and the AAWC claim they have the right to do such a thing, though Federal Laws prohibit the act due to FAA AIP Grant funding provided to the AAWC making all Airport-owned land subject to the provisions of the AIP Grants, of which the AAWC has received millions.

A Consolidated PBY Catalina amphibian was a visitor to Thunder Over Michigan in 2005. Dozens of Catalinas still survive, many in flying condition, from the days of World War II. The Catalina has been involved in Air & Sea Search & Rescue, along with aerial firefighting, executive travel and airline operations. Cathay Pacific Airways, Ltd., of Hong Kong, People's Republic of China, began operations with the Catalina following World War II. That airline now operates Boeing 747-400s, Airbus A340s and Boeing 777s, among many other types that now dwarf the Catalina type.

During the Bismark campaign, an RAF Consolidated Catalina was one of the aircraft that spotted the German Battleship, leading to that ship's eventual sinking. Catalina Seaplanes were heavily targeted by the Japanese during the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, and this Editor theorizes due to the Bismark campaign. Had those Catalinas been loosed in pursuit of the attacking fleet as it withdrew, the outcome of the attack might have been quite disasterous for the Japanese, despite the damage inflicted during the attack itself, which did not accomplish its primary mission ~ sinking the American carriers.

A sighting of the Japanese attack force by Catalinas following the attack could have led to its destruction, as the U.S. carriers were in the area under training operations, albeit combat ready, including the U.S.S. Enterprise, the Flag and Command Ship of USN Admiral William F. Halsey.

That issue became moot when Halsey and his Catalina patrol aircraft caught up with the Japanese fleet at Midway six months later, sinking four of the attacking carriers, one of two actions in that period, including the attack on Tokyo by the Doolittle Raiders, which immediately won the War for the U.S. and its allies, though the War did progress for another three years before its final, Atomic outcome.

War is but a simple game of Chess, and The Tokyo Raid in April, 1942, and the destruction of a major portion of the Japanese Fleet and its Naval pilots at Midway in June, 1942, put the Japanese Empire in check and retreat, with only pawns left to defend it against the relatively untouched and growing, primary forces of the United States:

...its well-protected, motivated civilian workforce, and what they quickly produced:

...the rapidly expanding Naval and Air Forces of the Sleeping Giant, a Leviathan Warrior now awoken and enraged by the military fanatacism and sheer suicidal military actions of its Axis opponents in Europe, the Pacific and the Far East.

All these Civilian efforts, placed in the hands of brilliant Military Commanders and Soldier/Leaders, bought time and won important, strategic victories, crucial to driving the enemy back into his home Country while freeing enslaved Allies and their Militaries, as Oppenheimer prepared the most awesome "Check Mate" ever to be delivered to date, in the sage-filled, adobe-colored, New Mexican desert of the American Southwest.

Twin-engined arrangement of the Black Cat prowler of the Alaskan night, the Consolidated PBY Catalina Patrol Bomber.

The Catalina came in two versions, a dedicated Seaplane and the Amphibian seen here, with retractable landing gear and floats, allowing both land and water based operations. The "Dumbo" operated on long range patrol operations over thousands of miles of ocean and island terrain, and was equipped with bombs, torpedos and fifty-caliber machine guns for aerial defense and strafing.

Not exactly descriptive of the aircraft, but most definitely descriptive of their destructive potential, despite their slow, lumbering speed. Likewise, they were the fantasy of many a delirious sailor and airmen trapped for days, if not weeks, on life rafts spread around the World from the Pacific in the West, to the Atlantic in the East, and the remaining seas inbetween.

Two of the US Navy's most formidable, World War II-era "large" aircraft on the ramp for Thunder Over Michigan, 2005.