| Years later, writing in November 2001, Joe described a recent visit
to "Fantasy of Flight" in Lakeland, FLA (http://www.fantasyofflight.com/b26.html)
where he was able to get back in the saddle again, in the pilot's
seat of a B-26. Here's how he described it:
"Had an interesting experience recently on a
trip to Florida. Stopped at the "Fantasy of Flight" at Lakeland
about twenty miles from Tampa. The Fantasy of Flight is a museum
of old planes both commercial and war planes and the last and
only flyable B-26 is located there. So I stopped to get a look
and stumbled on a movie crew for the History TV Channel
screening a sequence for the channel on the B-26 which they hope
to show next March. The Director of the crew came over to me and
introduced himself and of found out that I was a B-26 pilot thru
a conversation he was having with my wife. The upshot is that he
invited me to climb up in the cockpit and insisted that Trudi,
my wife, come up and join me, which she did and sat in the
co-pilot seat and let me explain everything I could remember to
her. That was a great experience for both of us particularly
with a copilot I have had for fifty years !!!!"
"BUT - Getting up into the cockpit was not the simple exercise
it was way back then. First off the nose wheel doors are now
much closer to the ground than I remember them and now are much
harder to bend down and get under them with out getting on hands
and knees, which I was very close to doing. Then standing up in
the nose well looking up in to the cockpit it looked almost too
much to attempt. I couldn't understand what the hell they did to
this airplane to make it so difficult to get into. IT was never
that way before !!! Thankfully they had a metal ladder fixed to
the floor of the plane and I gingerly started up. That worked
fine but when I got to the floor of the cockpit I was facing
into the radio compartment. The immediate problem was how was I
going to turn around and face the cockpit without falling back
down the nose well well???? I also found that they lowered the
top of the cockpit so that I had to stoop and in stooping down I
was sure I couldn't step over that bigggg opening in the floor
of the cockpit that I just vaulted up??? Now stooped down I took
that big step across the opening and now found myself hunched
over the throttles, prop controls and the fuel mixture handles .
Now how to get in the pilot's seat? The arm of the seat was up
against the engine control col with no room to slide by. So
Turned sideways and fell into the set and swung my legs over the
engine controls. A Big sigh escaped me and the first thought
was, How the Hell am I going to get out of here????"
"It was then that the film director called down to Trudi and
said," Mrs. Boylan come up here and sit beside your husband!"
She was a little reluctant but ducked under the nose wheel doors
and up into the cockpit and into the co-pilots seat with a level
of dexterity that was embarrassing!!! TO ME! I tried to make up
for it by impressing her with all that I knew and began
explaining all the controls and instruments et all. And then she
asked me, "What's this for?" and I had forgotten what it was for
so I suggested that we better get down now because they wanted
to start filming again. But I have to tell you it was real fun
and a great experience for my wife she really enjoyed to it sit
in the cockpit with me and tried to visualize that last mission
to Arhweiler."
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Joe Boylan, back in the saddle of a
Martin B-26, 2001. |
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