WWII's aviation past takes flight at Porter County airport show

THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM PRINTED VERSION

Joe Camm of Valparaiso is dwarfed by a World War II-era Mitchell B-25 bomber at the Indiana Aviation Museum Vintage Warbird Fly-in airshow Saturday at the Porter County Municipal Airport.(PHOTO) (PHOTOS BY DAVE BARTMAN/POST-TRIBUNE)Dale Katz of Lansing, Ill., and Rich Perrot of Munster look over the undercarriage of a T-6 airplane at the Vintage Warbird Fly-in airshow at the Porter County Municipal Airport.(PHOTO)

You wouldn't think an empty shell casing could upstage the only still-flying B-25D in the world, the same type of plane used to bomb Tokyo.But everybody who came to the Indiana Aviation Museum's Vintage Warbird Fly-in at the Porter County Municipal Airport Saturday wanted to get a look at the former 500-pound bomb similar to the one they'd read about in the news from Iraq this week.

"Don't drop it," joked a member of the Yankee Warrior crew as the hollowed-out piece of ordnance was set upright on its tailfins, ready to collect donations for a new hangar at the Yankee Air Museum at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, Mich.

As for the plane, it's "the most pristine B-25 you will ever see. It flies like a Maserati," according to Doug Duff of Windsor, Ontario, one of the volunteers who flew the former Royal Canadian Air Force bomber in for the exhibition. He said other B-25s still in the air are all later "J" models.

"The museum got this from a collector and restored it. With all the parts and work put in by volunteers, I don't know what it would cost," said Bill Clark of Ann Arbor, Mich., chief pilot for the Yankee Air Force and a 747 pilot for Northwest Airlines.

Duff pointed to eight black silhouettes painted on the nose tallying its bombing missions over the Mediterranean and two building-like outlines below them.

"Those are the outhouses they knocked over. Seriously," Duff said

"This is the first time I've seen a B-25. It looked bigger on TV," said Dale Katz, a Navy Vietnam veteran from Lansing, Ill. Duff said the plane has a wingspan of 66 feet, 7 inches.

Alex Kukurugay, 9, of Valparaiso was silent as he took a closer look at the 50-caliber machine guns in the nose with his grandfather, Steve Sopko, an ex-Air Force intelligence officer.

Other men from the Michigan museum helped children and parents up stepladders for a look inside the aircraft and took sign-ups for 45-minute flights at $400 a seat. Both the Michigan and Indiana museums maintain several vintage airplanes that they use as fundraisers by offering flights to the public.

Boswell said the museum will be offering special Father's Day flights next weekend at 10 percent off the usual sponsorship rates in the F-4U Corsair, P-51 Mustang, and A-37 Dragonfly that are part of the collection of 12 airplanes.

If you go

The Indiana Aviation Museum Vintage Warbird Fly-in continues from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today at the Porter County Municipal Airport, one mile east of Indiana 49. Admission is free, and there is a parking fee of $5.

For more information on the museum, visit www.in-am.org on the Internet or call 548-3123.