Touring B-17 Helps Keep A WWII Icon’s Legend Aloft

By Shannon Hicks

Richard Krikorian had an entertaining and educational experience earlier this month.

The Sandy Hook resident sent ten days as part of a four-man crew flying Aluminum Overcast, a fully restored World War II B-17 bomber, that made its way from Oshkosh, Wis., to Oxford, where it spent three days at Waterbury-Oxford Airport. The plane landed at the local municipal airport late in the morning of Monday, August 18. Mr Krikorian’s tour with it officially finished on Wednesday evening once the public tours finished for the day, but he returned on Thursday morning to see the crew off as it and the plane continued the group’s national tour.

Mr Krikorian was scheduled to finish his work as one of two mechanics with the plane last Wednesday night, but the aircraft and other crew members will continue on to Caldwell and then Trenton, N.J., and beyond, touring across the country until at least early November.

At each stop the crew opens the plane to public tours and private flights, but only after going through a full postflight checklist. Following its landing last week, Mr Krikorian could be seen emerging from the fuselage and getting to work. One of his first assignments? Putting the blocks under the wheels.

Shortly after that he was seen greeting a large group of family and friends and proudly showing off the plane while describing what he had been doing while onboard it for eight days. Emi Lydem, whose daughter Jacklyn is married to Rich’s son, Richard, drove out from Newtown with grandchildren Taylor and Payton Krikorian, and Lily, Hanna, and Eli Holmes (who are also Mrs Lydem’s — but not Mr Krikorian’s — grandchildren). Joining them were Kathy Weatherby and her children, Hannah and Forrest, and their friend Trevor Gaines.

The group waited outside the terminal for the plane to arrive and then land, and then had to wait for Mr Krikorian to escort them onto the tarmac. But when he found them, he was given a group hug and plenty of kisses by his granddaughters. Holding hands with Taylor and Payton, he led the group to the plane, answering questions and showing off the plane’s features.

Wearing a tan Experimental Aircraft Association uniform, an olive colored cap, and aviator sunglasses — and a huge smile — Mr Krikorian was clearly having the time of his life.

 “It’s been great, better than good,” Mr Krikorian said when he had a moment to talk with The Bee. “It was a little crazy at the beginning, still learning about the plane, but this has been an absolutely fabulous experience.”

One of the things that threw Mr Krikorian, but only for a moment, were the plane’s seatbelts. They are old-fashioned military clip-in, and a little confusing to most people the first time they go to strap in.

“They’re not commercial seatbelts, that’s for sure,” he said with a laugh.

He also learned — not from experience — that a “gears up” landing (when the landing gear does not lower) was not always a death sentence for the guy in the turret. Those small spaces on the plane’s underbelly are much tougher than most people imagine.

“I was always under the impression that those things got crushed in bad landings,” Mr Krikorian said. “But that’s a fallacy.”

Turrets, it turns out, were designed to collapse up into the plane. Many times a turret would end up within the fuselage. Just last year, in fact, Aluminum Overcast had a gear-up landing and its turret did just that.

“You see that?” Mr Krikorian said, pointing to the upper exterior portion of the plane’s body, where the aluminum was just slightly darker on one panel than its neighboring panel. “This plane’s turret damaged the plane when it came in hard last year. It hit that panel and they had to replace it.”

Turns out another fallacy when it comes to turret operators was their height. The men who manned the turrets were not always short.

“I’ve spoken to plenty of men who were as tall as 5’10” who worked in there,” Mike Repis, the crew’s senior mechanic, said Monday afternoon. “They were quite comfortable.”

“This is cool stuff,” Mr Krikorian said of his continued learning experience.

In addition to Mr Krikorian and Mr Repis, the onboard crew of Aluminum Overcast while she was in Connecticut included pilots George Daubner and Neal Morris.

Mr Krikorian is a member of Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), whose members have a wide range of aviation interests and backgrounds. EAA has chapters across the country, including Oxford-based Chapter 1443. The association owns Aluminum Overcast and coordinates its tours.

EAA’s national B-17 tours have taken place each spring and fall since 1994. Since then, tens of thousands of people have experienced this unique airplane through its visits and aircraft ground tours. Thousands of aviation enthusiasts have actually flown in the renowned bomber, which is considered one of the greatest military airplanes ever built and one of the best-known aircraft types of the World War II era.

“When we left Oshkosh on a four and a half hour flight to Pennsylvania, at one point we were flying of Lake Michigan. One of the other guys turned to me and said ‘Now imagine: You’re 20 years old, that’s the English Channel down there, and when we get closer to land again guys are going to be shooting at you,’” said Mr Krikorian. “These guys were kids. They were only about 20 years old, and the had a one in three chance of survival every time they went up.

“Thoughts like that give you a really funny feeling in your stomach when you’re in these planes,” he said.

Mr Krikorian was already a member of EAA 1443 when the association’s 2007 tour visited the municipal airport. For that tour Mr Krikorian helped people board and get off the lane, and he hung out with the mechanics whenever he was not busy helping the public. This month was his first opportunity to fly as part of the touring crew.

Not only did he fly with it, he also had a chance to fly it for a few hours.

“Yeah, I did get to fly,” he said with a grin. “We had a certified flight instructor on board, so it was all legal,” he was quick to point out.

The plane is beautiful. She’s factory clean. There are a few smudges where the wings meet the fuselage, where oil smoke from starting and stopping the plane cannot be helped, but there is not a single ding, dent, scratch, or bullet hole. The paint is bright, the markings are clean, and the windows — from those on either side of the cockpit and the full nose to the ones along the side of the plane’s body — are also streak free.

“I was amazed at how good the plane looked,” said Remo Tiso, an 83-year old former MP who served during the war and was on hand for the arrival of Aluminum Overcast, said Monday afternoon. “She’s all dressed up, of course. During the war they were just there to drop bombs. They were workhorses. That was it.

“This one’s different,” he added. “She’s beautiful.”