A while back I used to volunteer at the Heritage Flight Museum in Bellingham, WA, (now at Bayview/Skagit), in 2009 long time MSFS repainter Garry J. Smith and I worked together on a project for the Heritage Flight Museum and the Historic Flight Foundation. We recreated both Bellingham Airport and Paine Field as they were during WWII, and repainted flight sim models in the livery of the museum aircraft for interactive displays at both museums. Visitors to the museums can pretend to fly at Bellingham or Paine as they were during WWII in the actual aircraft that are on display a few feet away, though we took a little artistic license with Bellingham, since during WW II it was basically a small (but beautiful) terminal, 3 runways and dirt, so we enhanced it with a few extra hangars and hardstands.
In 2011 Garry and I collaborated again when the 39th Fighter Squadron held their annual reunion at the Heritage Flight Museum. In the days following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, there was a strong fear that the next step was an invasion of the west coast of the United States, and the 39th Fighter Squadron's P-39s were hastily deployed to Bellingham as defense. As we all know, the feared invasion never happened, and later the 39th was redeployed to the South Pacific, serving with distinction during the war.
As part of the reunion, we took a P-39 model and repainted it in the 39ths colors, and during a break in the reunion the two surviving original pilots who were deployed to Bellingham and attending the reunion were brought to the sims, where I was privileged to talk them through "One last mission" in the skies over Bellingham. In the photo below, Col. Frank Royal is at the controls while off camera his children, grand-children and visitors look on.
I love this photo. Col. Royal would have been 96 in this image, but check out his trigger finger itching to fire, and the touch of his left hand on the throttle quadrant.
I didn't have to do much talking to the old fighter pilots, like any good IP I just got the sim going and gave Col. Royal vectors. But as it happened, we did run into a Zero off Sandy Point, and we escorted it back until it landed on the IJN Akagi, then Col. Royal brought his P-39 back to Bellingham to complete the mission they thankfully never had to accomplish.
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I put almost a thousand unpaid volunteer hours in the project, those moments with Col. Royal made it all worth it, and it was a privilege to act as the IP for these two gentlemen.
Happy 100th, Col Royal. :salute:
http://www.cobraintheclouds.com/http://www.cobraintheclouds.com/39thorg ... story.html-Credit to the simmers who created the P-39, Zero, and IJN Akagi we used in the museum flight sims for this event.
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