Ride on the Yankee Lady
The Yankee Lady is a Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress, originally of the US Army Air Force, and now owned by the Yankee Air Force out of WIllow Run, MI. They fly into a local air show here on a somewhat regular basis. The plane itself was built late in the war, being delivered to the USAAF on 16 July, 1945 and subsequently went immediately into storage. It did not see combat or overseas duty during the war. After the war, the plane was one of 16 transferred to the Coast Guard for use in patrol duties. The aircraft was extensively modified, removing all the guns and installing a radar dome in the chin. At one point it carried a wooden lifeboat under the fuselage for dropping to stranded seamen. In 1959, the aircraft entered civil service. Initially used for aerial surveys, it was later converted to an air tanker for fire fighting duties. Yankee Lady was one of five B-17s to fly to Hawaii and be used for the film Tora! Tora! Tora! The Yankee Air Force acquired the plane in 1986...