Fire up a ball turret and more. This looks amazing.

Oh, hell yes.

It ain’t cheap but man that looks like fun! I’ll have to keep this in mind.

I went 6 years ago when it was a 3 day affair with full on ground school for all crew functions. Second best vacation I ever had.

Avg height of a Belly Gunner was 5' 6" according to some sources. One account told of a guy 5' 10". You were basically in a fetal position. You couldn't wear a parachute in the belly turret and would have to rotate the turret a six o clock aspect and depress the guns to allow the hatch to open into the fuselage. B24 was worse as the turret was carried within the fuselage for take off and landing, lowered when approaching the target area and then hoisted back up so the gunner could exit. Not a position for the faint of heart.

quote:

Originally posted by Citadel:
You couldn't wear a parachute in the belly turret and would have to rotate the turret a six o clock aspect and depress the guns to allow the hatch to open into the fuselage. B24 was worse as the turret was carried within the fuselage for take off and landing, lowered when approaching the target area and then hoisted back up so the gunner could exit. Not a position for the faint of heart.

Add to that the fact that these were not armored, and were beneath the aircraft, more exposed to flak than any other position on the airplane. The time to be in the turret was coincidentally the time most likely to receive flak, and the most likely to get bounced by intercept aircraft.

Oh my, that rates a solid 10 on the "cool scale"

Some of the add ons look awesome. Torpedo runs, P51 escort mission

Lots of money but definitely once in a lifetime. (Unless your a WW2 vet)

There's probably a lot of very deaf 'belly gunners'.

I’ve always wondered if there are studies of successful bailouts by crew position from stricken bombers. I suspect that the pilot and ball turret positions would have the worst statistics.

quote:

Originally posted by Tejas421:
I’ve always wondered if there are studies of successful bailouts by crew position from stricken bombers. I suspect that the pilot and ball turret positions would have the worst statistics.

I don't know specifically about bailouts, but I've read that ball turret gunners had the lowest casualty rate of the entire crew.

They were hunched up (smaller target) and surrounded by steel and glass, keeping all but the 'heavy' flack and shell strikes from hitting them. Conversely, the rest of the crew was basically exposed to flak and bullets.

It was often impossible for ball gunners to bail out due to the reasons listed above, but those were relatively rarer cases.


And, HECK YA 'MERICA I would LOVE to do that. I just don't know if I could fit in a ball turret and breathe at the same time. . .

Sitting in a ball turret of a B-17 while 5000 feet in the air, even with no one shooting at you is quite terrifying. Your mind starts wondering how sturdy that 75 year old metal and glass are...

This is on my list! And only 80 miles from me to boot.