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 B-25 Fly-Over at the National Museum of the United States Air Force - Warbird Photo Review
Wright Field,  Dayton, OH - April 18, 2017

Fly-Overs to honor the "Final Toast" and the 75th Anniversary of the Doolittle Raid

Eleven B-25s arrived at the former Wright Field on Monday morning April 17, 2017.  They were on public display the remainder of Monday and Tuesday morning.  Tuesday afternoon they all took off for a formation fly-by, and then a missing man formation over the National Museum of the United States Air Force.  The fly-by and missing man commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid.  After the fly-overs there was a ceremony in the memorial park on the south side of the museum.

There were a lot of visitors to the Tuesday morning B-25 display. 

"Barbie III" had her gun nose open for display.

"Betty's Dream" also had her gun nose open for inspection.


The pilot's gun sights can be seen inside the cockpit, with front aiming point mounted on the barrel of one of the .50 caliber guns.  There are two different types of gun sights in the cockpit.

"Yankee Warrior" has World War Two combat time from the Mediterranean Theatre of operations.

B-25 "Georgie's Girl."

"Miss Hap" was General Hap Arnold's personal aircraft during WWII.

The runway down which the B-25s launched. 

Getting to both the B-25 display and then to the museum was a challenge.  Traffic was backed up about a mile in two directions to get to the display.  In this photo I was stopped while waiting to get to the museum grounds.  Due to the large crowd, vehicles were parked on the grass.  It took me a half hour to get parked.

Raider One - "Panchito".  

There were some challenges in photographing the take-offs.  All spectators were behind an eight foot tall chain link fence that separates the Museum grounds from Wright-Patterson AFB.  And then there was the clutter, which in this case was the mobile control tower brought in for the event, and all of the vehicles around it.  For this photo, I wanted to capture, as best I could, the first B-25 just as it was lifting off.

Raider Two - "Barbie III"

Raider Three - "Miss Hap"

It was not until I started editing photos before I noticed that two persons had climbed up on top of one of the storage buildings to shoot over the fence.

Raider Four - "Betty's Dream"

Raider Five - "Champaign Gal"

The Challenge.  Lots of clutter!!!  The chain link fence on the left determines the start of the photo field.  But right there are all those cars blocking the location of where most of the aircraft started to rotate.  Then there is the mobile tower, a porta-john, a trailer, and a storage building.  All of this restricted the photo field to the right of the storage building.  And there was also the chain link fence to contend with.

Raider Six - "Yankee Warrior"

Raider Seven - "Georgie's Girl"

Raider Eight - "Show Me"

Raider Nine - "Devil Dog"

Raider Ten - The PBJ

Raider Eleven - "Miss Mitchell"

The fly-over.

B-25 "Show Me" did the pull out for the missing man formation.

After the fly-bys, there was a ceremony to commemorate the Doolittle Raid and its airmen.  The last remaining Raider at 101 years of age, Dick Cole is the gentleman in the white hat, sitting in the lower left corner of the screen.  Due to the crowd size, I was only able to photograph him on the large video display. 

After the ceremony, there was a high-speed pass scheduled by two B-1s.  I left the ceremony early to get out from under the trees in the memorial park to photograph the fly-by.  Twenty minutes before the parking lot was in grid lock, as many persons were exiting after the B-25 fly over.  Now the way from the lot to the road was completely clear.  There was not a single vehicle on it.  But there were still lots of vehicles on the grass that would all try to leave after the B-1 fly-by.  So, I decided to possibly forsake photos of the B-1s to get clear of the area in a timely manner.  Once out on the street just north of the museum, I found a mostly vacant parking lot.  Pulling in, I picked up my camera that I had laid on the front seat, got out, and checked the settings on the camera.  Looking up, I noticed two dots on the horizon.  The B-1s.  After a couple of seconds, I realized that they were not going to fly over the museum.  They were heading straight for me, and the main runway at Wright-Patterson AFB behind me.  Things happened very fast after that.

The time of this B-1 photo was at 3:15:22.

The time of this photo was at 3:15:32.


The time of this photo was at 3:15:34.

Due to my decision to leave the museum early, I was able to be underneath two B-1s on a high-speed pass.  My time in the parking lot was at most two minutes.