Wings of Freedom Tour
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BLAINE FALEKNA/Staff Photographer
Jeremy Cain of the Collings Foundation replaces an intake tube on an engine of the B-24 Liberator Wednesday morning in Binghamton, New York.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
B-17 Flying Fortress pilot Mac McCauley puts a stick into the fuel tank to double check the amount of fuel before flight Wednesday morning.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
The bombadier station is flanked on both sides by machine guns in the B-17 Flying Fortress.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
Control cables are visible in the fuselage above the radio station inside the B-17 Flying Fortress.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
The Collings Foundation's B-24 can be seen out the waist gunner's window of their B-17 with the .50 caliber machine gun in the foreground.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
An example of the .50 caliber rounds used in the machine guns of the B-17 and B-24.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
A P-51 Mustang does a fly-by before landing in Binghamton, New York before continuing on to Hazleton Municipal Airport Wednesday as part of the Wings of Freedom flying museum.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
Richard Smith, left, takes a picture of Ron Marchetti, center, as WNEP chief photographer Paul Kielbasa looks on Wednesday during takeoff from Binghamton, New York on the way to Hazleton Municipal Airport in a B-17 Flying Fortress.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
The view from the bombadier station on board a B-17 Flying Fortress is awe-inspiring, as if you are just sitting in a chair out in the sky, with almost a 180-degree feild of vision. Here the bright autumn colors of the trees are clearly visible through the plexiglas nose cone.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
Flight engineer Rick Ziel looks out the window of the Nine-O-Nine B-17 Flying Fortress on the way from Binghamton, New York to Hazleton Municipal Airport Wednesday afternoon.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
Propeller blades spin on two of the engines of a B-17 Flying Fortress Wednesday afternoon on the way to Hazleton Municipal Airport from Binghamton, New York.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
Pilot Mac McCauley, left, and Fred Lewis fly a B-17 Flying Fortress from Binghamton, New York to Hazleton Municipal Airport Wednesday afternoon as part of the Collings Foundation Wings of Freedom flying museum.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
The horizon looks a blur as the miles zip past beneath as seen from the top turret of a B-17 Flying Fortress.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
Charles Karchner puts his head up through the radio hatch of a B-17 Flying Fortress mid-flight Wednesday morning on the way to Hazleton Municipal Airport.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
Richard Smith, left, and Ron Marchetti look out from the waist gun emplacement in a B-17 Flying Fortress during a flight from Binghamton, New York to Hazleton Municipal Airport.
BLAINE FALKENA/Staff Photographer
Walter Woods, a World War II veteran, looks at the signs placed in front of a B-24 Liberator Wednesday afternoon at Hazleton Municipal Airport. The plane and three other vintage aircraft - a B-17, a B-25, and a P-51 - were at the airport as part of the Collings Foundation's Wings of Freedom Tour flying museum. Woods flew 28 missions in the Eighth Air Force's 486th Bomb Group, 834 Squadron as a ball turret gunner; 12 in a B-24 and 16 in a B-17 during 1944-45.