B-17 Flying Fortress Flyover

Yesterday afternoon while planting some tomatoes in the back yard I heard a distinctly non-modern sounding aircraft. I looked up to see this beauty flying by:

The B-17 "Flying Fortress" bomber "Nine-Oh-Nine", tail number 231909, flying over Orange County, CA on May 12, 2013.  Taken about an hour before sunset, the plane's left side is clearly visible.  The vintage plane has been resored by The Collins Foundation to it's WWII (World War 2) configuration, after having served in nuclear bomb testing in the 1950's, being sold as scrap, and being converted into a forest-fire supression plane. (Marc C. Perkins)
"Nine-O-Nine" flying over Orange County, CA on May 12, 2013.

It’s a restored B-17 bomber nicknamed “Nine-O-Nine”, and it even has its own Wikipedia page. Long story short, it’s been around the block a few times: it served in WWII, participated in atomic bomb testing in the 1950s, was sold as scrap in the 1960s, converted into a fire suppression tanker in the 1970s, and then finally sold to the Collings Foundation, who restored it to WWII-era condition in the 1980s.

The pilot(s) were even kind enough to fly nearly directly over our house about an hour or so before sunset, giving me a great view of the bottom of the plane:

The B-17 "Flying Fortress" bomber "Nine-Oh-Nine", tail number 231909, flying over Orange County, CA on May 12, 2013.  Taken about an hour before sunset, the bottom is clearly visible and evenly lit.  The vintage plane has been resored by The Collins Foundation to it's WWII (World War 2) configuration, after having served in nuclear bomb testing in the 1950's, being sold as scrap, and being converted into a forest-fire supression plane. (Marc C. Perkins)
Thanks for coming so close!

And, after a few loops over our house, it flew away:

The B-17 "Flying Fortress" bomber "Nine-Oh-Nine", tail number 231909, flying over Orange County, CA on May 12, 2013.  Taken about an hour before sunset, a brick chimney and the roof of a house frame this picture of the plane flying away from the sunset.  The vintage plane has been resored by The Collins Foundation to it's WWII (World War 2) configuration, after having served in nuclear bomb testing in the 1950's, being sold as scrap, and being converted into a forest-fire supression plane. (Marc C. Perkins)
Flying away

And, fortunately enough for this photographer, it flew AWAY from the sunset, so it was nicely lit for my final shots 🙂

More pictures

To see more pictures of the flyover, head to my B-17 Bomber Flyover Gallery.

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