Warbird Information Exchange

Yesterday I finally drove up to Douglas to volunteer on the Labrador B-17 at Don Brooks' place. When I got there, I was surprised to see Liberty Belle there, and a group of volunteers prepping her for the upcoming airshow season. Among the volunteers was fellow WIXer Chuck Giese (on a weekend volunteering trip from Chicago!!), whose original photos of the Labrador Fortress inspired me to go up to Douglas in the first place.



The exterior work was mainly focused on re-painting areas of the silver that seemed to have peeled off during the Belle's flights since roll-out. On the inside, folks were installing repro M2 guns in the waist positions and Chuck was working on getting the guns in the chin turret. When I showed, Don (about 1 minute after meeting me in person for the first time!) put me to work installing some radio panels up in the cockpit.

In all, Liberty Belle is a _gorgeous_ airplane and the restoration is absolutely magnificent. I am looking forward to seeing more of her on the warbird circuit in the future.

As for the Labrador B-17, looks like work on her will wait for the Kissimmee gang to relocate. Chuck tells me that he did some other work removing fuel tanks, but I won't steal his thunder, and I'm sure he'll post photos and such when he gets back home.



Naturally, whenever there's a WIX get-together, ya gotta get a photo!

Sorry, forgot to mention that the B-17 left Kissimmee a few weeks ago to get guns installed and touch-up paint put on. It is supposed to return to Kissimmee this week.

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Live to fly, Fly to live.....

The Liberty Bell flew back to Kissimmee today and the FAA was there to check the maintenance logs. They departed this afternoon to go back to Douglas, GA. They will come back once a week for the next four weeks to get certificated while the last bits and peices come together while it is in GA.

_________________
Live to fly, Fly to live.....

So, did they get the Limited Certification they were looking for? Why the multiple visits?

They need to do some minor changes to the maintenance plan before they can move the plane out of the current restrictions (Distance from Kissimmee, number of crew, etc.). It's still limited to essential crew only, and they need a (modified?) ferry permit to go to/from Douglas. It'll go back to Kissimmee next week for another meeting with the FAA, where hopefully it'll transition out of it's current restrictions, but still be Experimental. Not sure what they need to do to go from there to Limited.

Multiple visits? - Paperwork and FAA is in Florida, outfitting in Georgia. As Don said, the plane needs to fly anyway.