A day that will live in Epicness.

Yesterday was a day full of epic. Seriously.

I not only got to see the B-17, but crawl around inside for a little bit. How awesome is that?! Yes, I knew previously I was going to get to, but knowing that I have is just so cool... Especially thinking back to it, which I was doing all night and had a lot of trouble falling asleep. I'll try save some of the spazziness from you, unless of course you'd actually want to hear it. Then just ask on MSN, I'd be more then happy to tell you about it. XD

One thing that struck me about the inside is how small the compartments were. Yes, I've heard that it was cramped and have seen pictures, but obviously pictures can make things a lot different when it comes to comparing size. It's one thing to see a seat and try to imagine it, yet it's a completely different thing to walk through without being able to actually stand completely straight until you get to the waist gunners positions. It's surprising they could squeeze through with all their equipment and jackets.

When you first crawl into the small door (on the left side, under the cockpit), you go into a space that's only large enough to crawl and turn around in. They had the Bombardier's position (it's in the tip of the nose, the plexiglass bubble) blocked off, so I didn't get to go sit in it or anything.

Crawling toward the tail of the plane, you come to a small "room" where you can sort of stand up in. The cockpit is right in front, which is surprisingly tiny (it was blocked off as well). It looks as if the pilot's shoulders would be against the side of the plane, so there isn't too much room at all. The place you're standing it is actually the flight engineer's position. He'd keep an eye on the instrument panels and make sure everything's still working right. Also, he'd control the top turret gun position. I stood in that and looked out the plexiglass bubble a little, but didn't have too much time to sit around and gawk at everything like I wanted to (people were behind me and I didn't want to make them wait forever).

Going further back, you come across the bomb bay. In the middle, there is a very thin metal walking path with some ropes on the side (metal plates in the middle that act like walls). On each side of the plane is where they held the bomb load. They had a few decommissioned bombs for show. I couldn't imagine how scary it'd be to be walking across that only to look down and see Germany 30,000 feet below you. If you fell off, you're screwed. Granted, they had some harnesses, but a few times I heard of guys needing to take it off to try get the frozen bomb bay doors open. They had to jump up and down on the doors to break the ice.

Moving along, you come to a small room which held the radio operator and navigator. There was a small table with a radio next to a chair where they'd sit. In this one, since they are able to take people up to fly in it for $475 per flight, it also had a few extra seats. The ceiling was actually plexiglass, so you could see out the top. Aside from the bomb bay, it was the first time I could nearly stand up straight.

Behind that lies a compartment that houses the tail gunners and the ball turret gunner (the round bubble that hangs below the plane). This was easily the largest compartment, as all it was was the rest of the plane that had nothing in it. They had the waist guns still in, so I looked through the gun sights some and sat awhile inside since people could move past me finally. Looking to the tail of the plane, you could see where the tail gunner had to crawl through and sit, but they had it blocked off. Standing in the fuselage, I imagined how crazy it'd be to see it after a mission. Spent .50 caliber shells covering the floor... If they used most of the ammunition, it'd actually take brooms to sweep all of the shells out to make ready for the next mission.

While in there, a guy who looked mentally retarded walked up and started asking Jen what stuff was. He'd point and go, "What's this?" It was obvious he was just doing it for attention/to get her to talk, but I explained, anyway. Even if he didn't care, perhaps Jen would've liked to know.

Finally, we had to get out since I doubted they'd like us to camp out inside there for hours. We walked around the plane a lot just talking and taking some pictures. What really sucked was that I had my brother drive to my place to drop off my camera so I could have it, yet when I got there it didn't work at all. I'm not sure if the battery died or what (which wouldn't make sense considering I made sure it was fully charged the night before). So aside from the pictures I got on my cell phone, I couldn't get any. *emo* Hopefully some of Jen's prints come out that she took with a 35mm for Photography class. Yet as the professor told her, the ones you really want to turn out pretty much never do...

After awhile, we walked to the gift shop (I had already purchased a book (the size of a program you'd buy at a professional sporting event) from the guy who was monitoring who went into the plane) and I took a look at what they had. I ended up buying this awesome key chain, a poster of Sentimental Journey (the B-17), and these really cool playing cards which were spotter cards for air craft. They were originally issued in 1943 to help civilians and soldiers learn how to spot different sorts of airplanes just by the shape. Each card has a different aircraft (the four suits are of the different countries: US, Britain, Japan, Germany) and a picture from the front, side, and bottom. I was disappointed with the "models" they had there. One was just a cheap plastic (it felt too light to be metal) one you put on a stand and pulled a string to make the propellers move. That in itself isn't bad (aside from the plastic part), but the detailing on it was poorly done. The top turret was just a black piece of plastic and actually reminded me of those really cheap toys you'd buy for a 5 year old. Same with the other little models. I actually have a better one at home already that I bought which is smaller, and even more detailed than those. Disappointing, but at least I got a cool poster, deck of cards, and new key chain.

We hung around the plane for awhile longer until Jen was finally getting bored. So we left and walked around the mall for awhile, stopping at stores to look around. I had never known they had a candy store there, too bad it was sort of expensive....

Ah, yes... I saw a B-17 and crawled around inside. One of my life long dreams have been fulfilled. Unless I get brain damage or get amnesia, I'll never forget it. Epicness, I say. Epicness.

Just in case no one knew, the B-17 Flying Fortress is my all-time favourite aircraft ever built. Even compared to the P-51 Mustang or the F-15 Eagle, the B-17 is on a whole different level of Epic. Jen even commented that she never knew how big of an airplane nut I was. Guess I had to show her sometime, right?