B17 low

bgp429 · **Posted:** Thu Apr 21, 2022 7:30 pm

Is this picture real and if it is what is going on?

phil65 · **Posted:** Thu Apr 21, 2022 7:36 pm

The Making of the CAF DMWT Commercial..

https://youtu.be/8veDpPwFCVM

Phil

mike furline · **Joined:** Wed May 05, 2004 3:45 pm **Posts:** 2668

The pass at 3:25 has people scrambling for dirt.

Matt Gunsch · **Posted:** Fri Apr 22, 2022 8:18 am

And it took a Arizona based B-17 to make Texas look good.

JohnB · **Posted:** Fri Apr 22, 2022 8:57 am

I seem to recall a TV commercial or something.
You don't often see a Grumman (looks to be a FM-2) escorting a B-17.

Lon Moer · **Posted:** Fri Apr 22, 2022 11:12 am

wrong timeline.
Commercial ran in the '90's

Randy Wilson · **Posted:** Fri Apr 22, 2022 11:41 am

I was flying the CAF FM-2 and Reg Urschler the P-51D "Gunfighter". My logbook says it was October 25, 1990. Just FYI.

Randy

Lon Moer · **Posted:** Fri Apr 22, 2022 12:25 pm

Randy Wilson wrote:

I was flying the CAF FM-2 and Reg Urschler the P-51D "Gunfighter". My logbook says it was October 25, 1990. Just FYI.

Randy

Cool.

I thought the SJ pilot would have been Jim Orton, but the Orton/Maloney crash was in '83.

phil65 · **Posted:** Fri Apr 22, 2022 2:32 pm

Who was the pilot of the B-17 ?

Phil

Randy Wilson · **Posted:** Fri Apr 22, 2022 4:46 pm

I regret that I did not spend much time with the SJ B-17 crew before the flight and I can't remember the pilot's name. I flew the FM-2 to Midland from Dallas the day before and was a fairly new CAF fighter pilot and Reg took most of the briefing and I flew his wing on the mission the next day. Neither he or I were familiar with the area, as this was just before the CAF finished the move to Midland. At one point enroute Reg said something like "Stay here. I will be right back" and dove down to circle a water tower of a small town below us, on the way to the shooting location a ways south of Midland. He joined back up and we found the shooting location a short time later. I obviously could not try to follow our route on a sectional as a wing man and even today don't know what town he "visited". The fighters were supposed to follow the B-17 in closely as it flew low over the desert and then up the rise of the not too tall hill seen in the video. Let me just say that didn't work out for us. So we tried flying off the wing or wings and never made it into the final commercial. It was an interesting day. Again, just FYI.

Randy

aerojock · **Joined:** Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:58 am **Posts:** 148

Did they try a version with just the fighters?

Randy Wilson · **Posted:** Fri Apr 22, 2022 6:08 pm

aerojock wrote:

Did they try a version with just the fighters?

Nope. They wanted the B-17 to be the star, and it really was with the flying they did. Reg and I went back to Midland. The next day I flew the Wildcat back to my hangar at Northwest Regional to pick up baggage for the Mexico flight and then onto Harlingen. The next day, October 26, we launched a pretty good size CAF set of flights to the Guadalahara air show in Mexico (logbook shows Zapapan). That was a very interesting trip and show, as we had crowds on both sides of the active, display runway. I returned the Wildcat to its CAF base at the D/FW Wing hangar in Lancaster, Tx on October 29 after a stop at Harlingen for a total flight time home from Mexico of 4.7 hours. I'm told I need to write a book. Just my 2 cents.

Randy