Vintage Bomber Arrives for Show

It was a pretty good airplane. That's how the commander of a vintage B-24 bomber that landed in ...  More »

It was a pretty good airplane. That's how the commander of a vintage B-24 bomber that landed in Minot today described the aircraft. Carl Riese says with 50 caliber guns in the nose and tail and eight thousand pounds of bombs, the B-24 was well protected and very good at knocking out German and Japanese installations. Riese and his Commemorative Air Force brought the bomber to Minot for Northern Neighbors Day at Minot Air Force Base this Saturday. Tomorrow and Thursday, the bomber will be at the Dakota Territory Air Museum near the Minot airport and the crew will be giving rides to people who want them. Riese says flying the plane is lots of fun. (Carl Riese, Commander) It's a little noisy and vibrating and not too fast. Most of the pilots with our group are airline pilots and it's a lot of fun - more fun than the big jets. We're flying low and we can see the ground and see where we're going and the people we give rides to really enjoy it, they get off the airplane smiling. Riese says the B-24 you can see this week is one of only two still flying. He says there were 18-thousand of the aircraft manufactured and the bombers played a key role in winning the war in Europe.  « Less